


Into the Depths of Heaven

by kuriyamimizu (nachttour)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Remix of an Old Fic, scary medical shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 18:53:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14087421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nachttour/pseuds/kuriyamimizu
Summary: There is a thin line between awake and asleep, the present and the past. The pilots feel the world around them unravel as things completely outside of the realm of planetary and stellar warfare and guerrilla tactics invade their lives.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As a much younger writer, this story is my first and only significant contribution to the fan-community. The themes and scope of the story were something larger than I could properly convey within the scope of my experience as a younger person, but man I tried my best. In returning to this story I hope to make it more cohesive, make the flow of text much smoother and allow the story to be conveyed as clearly and strongly as it could have been. For those that loved the original incarnation: thank you. To new readers? Welcome, and I hope you enjoy

Heero Yuy stared blankly at the green line on the screen. Despite his vague desire for the system to suddenly wipe and the screen to crack, the text endured backlit and threatening. There was no option to ignore them, or forget that they had arrived after deleting the communication. They were his orders and by their presence in the inbox of his triply-secured account, they were now the new law that he lived under.  


/ Destroy Wing Zero and Wing 01 and then self-destruct. Leave no traces. No return communication is required. Contact your distributors and field-contacts for debris removal and funeral arrangements should they be necessary. /  


Clicking the message and deleting it, after keying in a required password, he pushed backward in his office-chair staring at the desk his head abuzz. Inhaling deeply, he shook his head and searched the room for something else to focus on, eyes meandering over framed photography in the office. The safe-house they currently borrowed usually was occupied by a family of five. They were overseas for the next six months and presumably being compensated for any damages that might occur to their property. His eyes ended up resting on a picture of a dog of some sort, romping through a field.  


The authority of his orders were absolute, there was no chance or reason to disobey them. At his core, something rebelled. He did not want to do it again, as the command represented a gauntlet previously run. Shrapnel embedding into his skin, the crunching, sickening feeling of his ribs and sternum cracking under the pressure of the explosion, none of these things were new to him. There was no logical reason for him to die. They might need Zero at some point in the future, with the systems on-board that had been pioneered. Though he was not vain, he knew that he was an exceptional operative. No task at first seemed insurmountable to him, and if there were challenges he would overcome or work around them. What was to be gained in wasting a valuable soldier?  


Still, they had not won all of the battles that they as a group had from questioning orders constantly. Intuition was different from fear. Pressing his lips together, he shut down his system.  


“Mission accepted.” 


	2. Shadows and Lights

It must have looked a bit sexual to anyone watching. Duo hung suspended slightly in the air held in a climbing rig, straddling the large cylinder that formed the scythe of his gundam . Over the years he had become increasingly savvy to the maintenance requirements of his war-machine. The original Deathscythe, being a beta-project had been prone to glitches, but reliable. Deathscythe Hell was equally as demanding of time and attention, if not a bit more finicky of enacted repairs. Tossing his head so his braid would hang down his back where it belonged, Duo grabbed a wire cutter.

“You are such a beast, you know that baby? I pamper you, I take you to dinner, I make sure that lasers don’t hit you, and this is how you repay me? With a mysterious blue light that will never, ever go away?” 

Silence greeted him, but Duo expected nothing different. If the gundam had answered him, it would have been a sign that it was time to pull out the hand-gun and do what needed to be done, Yuy style. Thinking on the zero pilot made him smile. On a purely professional level he had nothing but respect for his fellow terrorist. Heero and the Zero had a sort of mechanical camaraderie as neither of them was capable of emotion; Duo could appreciate their synchronicity even while having no claim to that sort of connection. Deathscythe could take missiles to the face and live; this was a skill he was still developing and aptitude for. 

“We don’t need words, do we my dear? It’s all in the hands, and I’ve got -the touch-. ” Grinning and tucking a wrench into his pocket he straightened up, closing his tool-box and then locking the service-hatch he had accessed to start his work. 

A hazy and comfortable silence filled the hangar, and the last echoes of his voice slowly dissipated even as the stifling heat of the place pressed in on him and sweat dripped down his neck to saturate his collar. The hangar had been built for the comfort of no man, but rather the mechanical constructs that dwelled within it. That suited Duo fine, anyplace the Deathscythe went he would follow faithfully. 

Giving himself a measure of slack on his supporting line, he touched down on the horizontal surface of the scythe and lay down on his stomach, cupping his chin in his hands and giving his hindquarters a rest from bearing the hanging weight of the rest of him. Straps menacing the boys was nothing to laugh about, and his thighs ached from the pressure. Drumming his fingers along the metal surface he felt his mouth curl up into a smile. “My weapon of mass destruction is carrying a weapon. Since when did that start? Seems a bit ridiculous doesn’t it?” Offering his rhetorical thought to the hangar, he prepared to adjust his lines and get down. Unfortunately the mundane reality of safety equipment and all of the other sweet mysteries of life fled from thought in the face of the flaring, searing pain sparking from temple to temple. 

“God in heaven” 

Duo could hear his own small entreaty, somewhere back behind the wall of cottony interference that wrapped his perception. What exactly God in heaven was going to do for him, he was not entirely sure; any sort of respite from the pain would have been welcome. Upon opening his eyes, the sights that greeted him were unsurprising in their vulgarity. The acrid perfume of burning wood, the meaty and slightly sweet smell of old blood intermixed with the caustic yet pleasant fumes of spilled gasoline. The noxious combination of those factors permeated the area. 

Such was the scenery of ‘normal every-day life’. The only things missing were the screams of injured people and sharp reports of gunfire and a dust cloud. Most of the dust had settled down, though. Looking closer, some of the burnt, limp things lying here and there on the road, or half in and half out of collapsed structures started to look human. That took care of the corpses. Waiting for the gunfire he carefully moved forward. The gravel he traveled on might have been a road at one point, schisms and cracks obscured its purpose. 

Shaking his head and tugging his collar up and mouth-breathing in an attempt to minimize the smell he hopped over a fallen telephone pole that blocked the way. The wires on the ground curled and twisted and looped over things, looking like large dead snakes with copper intestines hanging out. One hand rested on the butt of his gun and his shoulders ached from tension. If this was a dream then he would not be able to fire fast enough. A constant in his unconscious, Duo felt quite resentful of his inability to shoot when necessary in whatever dream-battles he fought. One might argue that there was a sexual element about an inability to shoot, but he knew better. Mind and body were two entirely different arenas, and in the area of his body he felt confidant. His hand knew where to travel, what the click of the safety felt like. His muscles knew a gun in real time. If this was a hallucination, then he was in trouble; shooting at the metal shell of Deathscythe point-blank would cause deadly ricocheting consequences. 

The reality before him felt too horrifically sensuous to discount. The smoke burned his nose and the whimpering animal noises of the dying made him want to retreat to the sterilely quiet mental place reserved for urban-missions with high casualty numbers. Duo was not a mass-murderer. He did not enjoy killing people, and hated when there was collateral damage involved in missions. Generally, this all was behind a wall of metal. The dying screams of other pilots sometimes would come over the general channels, and the smells still seeped in, but it was not the same as strolling balls-deep in the mayhem. 

Walking along the most stable of the sections of the road, he glanced down to find white fluff near his feet. Curious, he followed the line that the fluff made. Apparently it had floated from someplace further back in the rubble. The texture of the stuff resembled down, or something that might come from a bird. Figuring that some of the local avian life had met their maker in whatever had caused the destruction he looked back up to see if he could find a place that was not on fire. Fire and burnt out buildings meant collapses and unsafe ground. Still, something about the feathers bothered him. The concentration and size of them indicated a very sizable species. Against his better judgment he turned, carefully going into a less stable-looking section of rubble and following the feather-path. Beneath his feet concrete slabs crumbled, and rebar groaned and complained, some of it sticking out of broken slabs and pointing skyward. 

“Christ on a cross children. What’s with this shit? It doesn’t really make sense. There are no hostages, no signs of suit-damage. I just don’t get it. I can’t even tell if this place was bombed or if we’re in the midst of a natural disaster.” Biting his lip, he balanced on a reinforcing wall, and carefully dropped down. 

The feathers were much more numerous in the place that he had arrived. The blood smell hung cloyingly thick, held in by the ceiling over his head. Glancing up he determined that it must have been a parking structure at some point in time. The dim recesses of the place were slightly cooler than the surrounding environments, but the smoke hung low and oppressive. Duo felt his fingers tighten around the butt of his gun before the understanding of what had startled him presented itself. Dropping down into a crouch, he brought the weapon out. Life and death in terrorism depending on instinct, and his instincts had always done right by him. 

The breathing sounded odd. Tiny intermittent gasps, interspersed between gurgles and quiet coughing fits. Lowering his gun, Duo advanced. Feathers sticky and saturated with old, blackened blood stuck to the walls and pavement. Frowning at the sight he stopped, his shoes splashed softly, “that would be a blood pool.” Murmuring and letting out a breath, Duo stepped back slightly. Having stood in more than one in his lifetime, he knew what they meant. 

Blood pools were bad for a number of reasons. By walking through blood-pools one left footprints. Footprints could be used as circumstantial evidence. Blood also carried all manner of unpleasant ways to die. Step too hard and a drop would get into a mucus membrane and abra-kadabra ladies and gentlemen, there was a death sentence. 

Thoughts of blood-borne pathogens and trace fled his mind. The overhead clouds contributing to the haze parted slightly. The resulting sun-beam illuminated the dying man’s face. 

Duo blinked, touching his head lightly to make sure that someone had not suddenly struck him. A high pitched ringing filled his ears and he felt vaguely nauseated. Hardly one to shy away from gore, he could not comprehend the shock-like reaction to what he gazed upon. 

The body, as he could not find it within himself to name the corpse, could be Heero’s twin. The same awkward brown hair, same skin tone, same facial structure, everything looked similar. Duo had seen the Zero pilot after a couple of missions where he had more resembled hamburger than a person. Being thrown around a cockpit could do that to a person. There were a lot of sharp edges, and the epidermis was not as thick as people might be at first led to believe. 

Lying face-up on the ground, vulnerable and broken, the body looked a lot like Heero after that mission. Had the face still contained eyes, he would have found this all to be a bit much. Bruises blossomed around the man’s throat, blue, black and sickly deep yellows contrasting with what healthy patches of skin did show. Similar bruising decorated his wrists. Curled defensively in front of his chest his hands were raw, nail beds exposed and bloody, some fingers at strange angles. Deep scratches and cuts decorated his fore-arms and chest, some digging deep and exposing hints of muscle. 

The source of the blood remained a bit of a mystery. Cautiously approaching, trying to be both quiet and non-threatening if the wretch could hear him, he looked closer. What he found deepened both his confusion and the sense of surrealism saturating the moment. A shoulder sat out of joint, but something further about his back also brought Duo’s attention. Bony protrusions extended out from them, the surrounding musculature exposed from deep, long rends in the flesh. Bone splinters faced outward, like jagged teeth protecting the surrounding flesh. Feathers still covered parts of the appendages where they had not been molested. Faced with the fantastical, he shook his head. 

“I guess I’m actually seeing this. Those are wings. I am looking at wings. Attached to a dying guy. In a parking garage. In post- attack hell. Who looks like a coworker of mine.” Laughing out loud at the absurdity of it, Duo glanced further, only to rather abruptly stop laughing. The body had had turned slightly toward the noise, and his expression was somewhat frightened. Fingers curled tighter which produced a rather piteous pain noise. 

“Poor bastard.” Feeling out of sorts and simultaneously amazed that the poor guy had survived the amount of trauma apparent on his body and still be cognizant enough to react , Duo tried to figure out what to do. His hand returned to his gun swiftly when one of the broken hands landed on his free wrist. Wetness dripped down his skin from the bleeding, and his skin felt cold where the blood touched.

“Maxwell?” 

Duo jerked his hand back with as much force as he could muster. Eyes wide, he stared at the body. Any sort of sick amusement from the situation fled him like a frightened bird leaving behind fear. That voice was familiar. And far too calm for what had happened. Far, far too calm which was just like him. Still feeling like it was all some sort of exceedingly sick joke, Duo found the voice to reply. “Heero?”

The body with Heero’s voice stayed still a long time, the odd melody of his bubbling, wheezing breath hypnotizing. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered. 

Surveying the damage, Duo frowned, feeling righteously uncomfortable with all of it, curling and uncurling his hands, shifting his weight slightly from foot to foot. Heero Yuy did not have feelings, and did not express concern over the mortal condition. “Who did this to you? I’ll make sure they get it. Do you remember faces? Names?” 

Again, the body stayed still for a long time, breathing. Duo winced each time his chest moved, indicating that he still clung on to life. At his side, his non-bloody hand brushed over the butt of the gun. This was a dream; it had to be a dream. He had just seen Heero at the safe-house earlier in the day, he was fine, and nothing apocalyptic had happened in the town that they were staying in. This scene could not be, and therefore he had to do what needed to be done. Had the situation been reversed and he was the one sitting in a pool of his own blood and dying from massive assault he would want the courtesy returned. The safety was already off. Pulling the gun out once more he leveled it at Heero’s temple; the shot had to be clean. If he jerked Heero would suffer for it, and Duo wanted it to be a quick death. 

His hand shook, his finger hesitated on the trigger, the high pitched whining in his ears increased dramatically in volume. The nice, quiet, distant place was nowhere to be found, when he most intently wanted to run and hide inside of it. This situation was very complicated, feelings were leaking in that did not belong. 

Heero, out of all of the other pilots had always been someone very special to him, very dependable and unfalteringly honest, if a bit socially awkward. He deserved to die with a little dignity and not sitting and drowning in his own fluids in a parking structure. 

“Finish what you started, Maxwell.” Blood dripped down the side of Heero’s mouth. The frightfulness of the statement did not have time to register. Behind Heero, Duo caught other movement and squeezed off three shots in rapid succession. The report from the shots echoed deafeningly in the enclosed space following the previous quiet. Heart beating jack-hammer fast, Duo took a knee in the blood, a structural column at his back. The source of the movement slowly presented itself. A tiny girl peeked around Heero’s elbow. Covered in ash and soot, she almost did not appear as the blonde that she was. Head cast down, and hands clapped over her ears, she shivered, hunching next to the body. 

Feeling like the largest son of a bitch on the planet, Duo holstered the gun again. “Firing on babies. Good job Duo, excellent job, in fact. She really looks like an enemy. Standing at a menacing three feet and some change. Maybe a grand total of four years old. She’ll be firing guns and piloting mecha in no time!” Getting up, pants semi-saturated in cold fluid, he came forward again. With a child there, he could not in good conscience take the head shot. There were some things that no one ought to witness. Lightly touching Heero’s head, intently apologetic, he gazed at the girl. “Baby, can you hear me?” 

Reaching out to touch her, he stopped. She, like Heero had something intensely and innately wrong about the structure of her shoulders. Long, bony and slick protrusions hung out from the straps of an over-long tank-top she had adorned herself in. Almost like bat-wings but not quite as delicate in the bone structure they fanned slightly when she adjusted her stance. Glancing up, skin decorated the blood-splatters and dirt, there was something frightening rather than pitiable about her small face. Rosy lips curved upward in a tiny smile, and Duo felt disconcerted in finding that she and he shared an eye-color. She closed the distance between their hands, stroking his palm with tiny fingers tracing the lines of his hand. Parting her mouth, she started to speak, but no words were forthcoming. Putting his lip-reading skills to use, Duo studied her. 

/ It really is quite sad about him, you know. He suffered so much. He’s died so many little deaths, he’s been so strong and so pure to end up like this. Used, and tossed away in someplace dark. It’s almost like someone took everything he had and then threw him down in a hole. But that’s a good place to hide bodies. People don’t like to look into the dark. Wouldn’t you agree, Duo? /

Staring at her, Duo took his hand back. “How do you know my name?” 

Resting a hand over her heart, she smiled at him. Then she fell down, face-planting into the blood and the bone-fragments at Heero’s feet. She lay in the blood, completely still and going paler by the second. Duo looked away, trying to catch his breath, feeling like he had been underwater for too long; his lungs ached, and his head was pounding in time with his heart. 

A nomadic thought crossed his mind, leisurely in its arrival and in presenting the understanding that it brought with it. With nightmares, once the shock value wore off, usually the dream would switch settings, or change into something else entirely. With the balmy atmosphere in the hangar, it could have been possible that he had fallen asleep. The gundanium was not the most comfortable surface, but he had been known to sleep in stranger places. Sticking his hands in his pockets he closed his eyes, trying to find a way to go to someplace different. 

“Haven’t really been sleeping well lately. All sorts of migraines during the day, with different onsets. Soemtimes it’s sounds, sometimes its bright lights. So it would make sense that I’m catching a power-nap on the scythe, right? Right. Of course I’m right about this.” 

On opening his eyes, Duo found himself in the same parking structure. A light breeze moved the hanging smoke out in tendrils, and caused some of the tiny, downy feathers to stick to his moist pant-legs. No rafters were there to greet him. Looking back to the scene of the debauch, the body had finally stopped breathing, the death-rattles ceased. The little girl was no longer face-planted where she had fallen and Duo did not mind her absence. “Creepy demon kids, dead angel-coworker, this is bizarre. I’m done. I’m –DONE- you hear me!” Turning around marching stalwartly away from the dead guy, he headed back over the wall toward where he had come from. 

Off to one side there was another movement, going for his gun Duo found it missing. Slipping behind a large section of concrete he peeked around cautiously, waiting to see if he could catch light reflecting off the metal of a gun. No reflections provided a hint, and Duo rounded the cement from the other side, scythe in hand. Pausing to look down at the scythe in blood-splattered hand, he shrugged. Dream logic must be applying itself. Even if this was a realistic dream, things had been appearing and disappearing. And on Earth, that was not now things went. Lasers and some of the technology that they lived with could be magical to those who did not have a handle on technology, but no real magic existed. 

A movement to his right caught his eye and he swung as he wheeled, to find Quatre standing quietly, head tilted back slightly so as to allow his jugular a few inches further away from the blade of his weapon. Seeing Quatre felt like being able to breathe air again after being in space for extended periods of time, real oxygen was always better than the stuff processed through the air ducts. Carefully bringing the scythe toward him again and laying it on the ground, Duo went forward, clapping his arms around Quatre’s shoulders and giving him a companionable squeeze before stepping back again. “You wouldn’t believe how happy I am to see you. Apparently we’re in apocalypse now or something crazy like that. I close my eyes for a second and the world ends.” 

The blonde smiled, kind and somewhat demure as always. Duo liked him for many reasons. Of all of the pilots he was the most sensitive and therefore the easiest to tease, but he was also the most compassionate. One could talk with him without fear of recrimination of accusations of softness. He filled something in Duo that had stayed empty for a long time. He honestly was fond of all of his fellow gundam pilots. They shared a bond that very few others could understand. Piloting the mobile suits was an insidiously difficult job, each had its own personality and quirks that required a steady mind to deal with them. All of the other four pilots felt like pieces of himself, familiar parts of his heart: each complimenting the other. 

Breaking his contemplation Quatre took his hands strongly, staring into his face. “We have to wake up, Duo.” 

Saying ‘no shit’ to someone as polite as Quatre gave Duo pause, where he felt no guilt using his extensive and colorful vocabulary to the fullest when around Wufei or Heero. Quatre and Trowa both tended to inspire limited manners in him, however specific in their scope. “How do we do that?” 

Quatre smiled, apparently relieved that Duo was getting with the program. “You hold onto me. And you don’t let go.” Feeling absolutely no opposition to that request, he kept their hands joined, fervently hoping for solace and comfort from the harsh reality he had arrived in. Around them, it all started to melt away and vanish, the panic and the pain filtering away like colors bleeding off of a canvas drenched with paint remover exposing blackness in its wake. 

Upon arrival into the waking world Duo was aware of two things. The first was the sound of a dual set of gasps, his and presumably Quatre’s. The second thing to reach his awareness was that the migraine he had started his adventure with had grown in intensity. White spots flicked in front of his eyes, nausea clenched his stomach and every sound made his throat constrict. 

“Uuuuurgh”, even vocalizing needed to be soft and careful, lest there be dire consequences. Duo wondered if sound actually could take physical form, and pierce his brain. It felt like someone was putting needles of sound through his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Quatre carefully sitting up, looking almost as nauseated as he was. Turning, the blonde came over and hovered, blocking the overhead lighting. 

“You okay?”

“Feel kinda like I’m going to heave, actually. Might not want to be so close to my face.” 

Quatre sat back on his knees, much paler than he had been in the dream, concern knotting his brows. Duo forced a smile, easing his aching eyes closed. Having them open hurt, and having them closed hurt, so really there was little difference, however less light took some of the hurting away. He appreciated the intense concern that Quatre radiated. One could always trust the blonde to worry. Occasionally it felt nice to know that someone in the wide universe cared that he was still breathing. 

“You scared me, Duo. I came in to tell you that we were all going out to get something to eat, and you were just dangling in your rig, like a rag-doll. I thought you’d gotten electrocuted or something like that. You never ground when you’re working with the wiring, and you’re gonna kill yourself. The voltage on the suits is extremely high. I don’t know why you just don’t let your technicians fix it for you!” 

Smiling a bit, Duo shook his head the slightest bit. “’s nothing like that,” he replied as softly as he could so as not to disturb the brain-needles. “I honestly think that I dozed off while I was up there. I had all of my panels closed and wires connected, I was just resting before I got down. And you know me, I can sleep through a nuclear attack pretty soundly. I probably just slid and the harness caught me. As to the technicians, ‘s nothing I needed to pay for. Just little stuff. When it’s big, I take my baby in. But when it’s not, why go to the emergency room when all that’s needed is a band-aid?” 

Quatre looked away, frowning and rubbing a temple with a fore-finger. “Whatever you say, Duo.” Acquiescing because he had no grounds to argue from. Duo felt somewhat relieved. Quatre most often would let an argument go if he had nothing concrete to offer over as reasoning, unlike some of the other pilots. Wufei in particular stood out in his mind as one to fight without actually having something serious to fight about, as he just liked to argue. The blonde spoke again, sounding far away, Duo presumed he had stood up. 

“Just take care of yourself, Duo. When I got you down out of the safety lines you wouldn’t wake up. Is there a history of narcolepsy or something weird in your family that causes long bouts of intense sleep?” 

“You think I’d be piloting if there was? That kind of stuff is triggered by stress. Don’t worry about it. Like I said, I probably fell asleep and when I slid I might have brought the tool box with me and it bonked me on the head. I’ll be okay. Relax.” The concern was beginning to wear on him a bit. Duo just wanted to peel himself off of the floor, go to his room, stuff his head under a pillow, take some sleep aids, and get some dreamless rest. 

The sound of Quatre’s footsteps retreating signaled the conversation had come to its end. “So I’ll tell them that you’re doing work in the hangar and send your regrets?” 

“Tell them whatever you like my friend. I’m feeling a bit worn out from all of this. I’m going to go and lay down for a while.” 

Opening his eyes and carefully navigating up into a sitting position, Duo looked at Quatre standing in the doorway, observing him with a curious expression on his face. “Do that. I think it’ll help your concentration a bit. Be careful with yourself, Duo.” He turned the corner and was gone. 

Staring at his hands, Duo tried to reconcile the experiences of the bizarre half-dream with waking life. He could still feel the cold, wetness on his hands, fabric touching his knees from his saturated pants, and the soft texture of the downy little feathers that had littered the ground. The smell of smoke still lingered in his hair. Getting up and getting his things put away, he felt as if this had been a brief introduction to something much larger. It was a hunch, but it came from the same place that kept him alive in solo firefights. Turning off the lights in the hangar he headed outside to the car, he just wanted to get home and go to sleep. It would all make more sense after some drugs and darkness. 


	3. Traces of Divinity

Heero Yuy sat straight-backed on his bed, back to the wall, legs folded. Hands resting over his knees appearing meditative with eyes half-closed in contemplation. The orders received earlier in the day weighed heavily on his mind, hours later. Every other suicide command previously received had made sense. The situations that he and the suit had encountered would have compromised the integrity of the mission at large. Letting his hands slide off of his knees to rest on the bed, he moved them back and forth in restless thought, palms brushing over the cottony texture of the comforter. No sense would visit him that day. The orders had not contained an execution date, so he had a space of time to ponder the specifics and make his arrangements. 

“And to confirm them.” Murmuring out loud to strengthen his conviction he moved to stand. Looking in the mirror he remembered to check his clothing. At most times he moved about in fitted shorts and a tank-top; getting into flight gear proved much easier when attired in that type of ensemble. However, his teammates were socially conscious and fashion was a factor to be taken into consideration. Going to his closet he looked through what hung in it. Several pairs of slacks and a few shirts of varying shades made their residence on the hangers. A couple of different school uniforms hung near the back. Not having an opinion one way or the other, he selected a combination of colors he understood to be non-offensive and dressed himself. They had an informal dinner to attend that evening. The Winner boy had requested it, and Heero had a hard time telling Quatre no. 

Footsteps approached from the hallway. Forcing the schooled tension from his shoulders, he stood and opened the door. Maxwell returned from whatever he had been previously engaged in. As he remembered, Duo had mentioned repairs on the Deathscythe Hell or something to that effect. Heero was as inclined to believe that he had been out at the bars at the edge of the city, carousing. Duo was that kind of person. His general pallor and the thin layer of sweat covering him assisted the validity of that assumption. The sheen revealed itself in the pleasantly subtle lighting from one of the desk lamps. 

Heero pondered the concern that these facts raised in him. He and Maxwell had a strong working relationship; often roommates as well as an excellent team in the tactical sense. Though any one of the five pilots would suffice as accompaniment in a mission, Duo was his preferred partner. He could trust the American to do the most suicidal thing possible right along with him without complaint, whereas some of the others had reservations in regard to their lives and those of others. 

His partner had been suffering from headaches for several months. The fact obviously presented itself in the numerous bottles of pain-killers that occupied the bathroom trash, as well as his intermittent bouts of terseness or silence where Duo usually verged manic. They could be attributed to anything. All of the pilots had suffered massive and severe physical trauma on a regular basis during their developmental years, on top of being exposed to extreme gravitational forces and constant stressors. Perhaps the most bothersome thing of it all remained the lack of concern that Maxwell showed for himself. Bouncing around and playing the clown, he entertained the illusion that he was tricking them. Heero did not feel tricked. He knew for a fact that Quatre was also not tricked. Wufei was most likely aware that something was amiss as well. As for Trowa, he was not sure that the acrobat cared. If he did, it was likely he also had an awareness of the situation. They were a unit, and as a unit they had to be aware of one-another, strengths and weaknesses. They could only be as strong as the weakest member of the group.

Duo flashed him a grin, lowering down to sit on the other end of the bed and resting forward on his elbows. “Hey. Out of uniform even. Does this mean that you’ll be going to dinner with the rest of ‘em?” 

“Hn.” Monosyllabic replies were his favorite form of acknowledgement. They gave nothing more away than confirmation of a simple question and having heard what the other speaker said. Beyond confirmation, extra conversation was a waste of breath. He had been taught that no one actually cared what he thought or felt about things unless they specifically asked. Having lived in the general populations of the colonies and Earth, he had found truth in the teaching. Disregarding all of that, Heero liked to talk to Maxwell. The man was amusing in his constant ramblings on every subject. One could also count on him in any given situation to find something humorous to say about it. Irritating and helpful in turns, Herro felt a lingering attachment to the pilot. They were unit-mates and it was natural. Duo was speaking again. Returning his attention to the present, Heero looked over at him.

“-‘re going to be late if you keep sitting there. Quatre’s a fussy socialite about attendance. All of those sisters of his have made him wrong in the head.” 

“Hn.” 

“Jesus Heero, get a vocabulary!” 

Smirking, he shook his head slightly. “I have one. I just do not choose to use it.” 

Heading out of the room and turning off the light behind him, Heero headed down the stairs to join the group. Behind him, he heard the sound of the shower start up. Presumably Duo would grab a shower and sleep it off. That was the existing pattern. 

Heero was big on patterns; they made some sort of sense of the universe, which otherwise proved completely incomprehensible. 

Settled into the front seat of the car they had borrowed from the house’s owners, Heero watched the red and white lights whiz by the window. Thousands of lives blurred by them at high speeds. Resting his head against the cool pane of the glass, he closed his eyes, content to listen to the small talk occurring between the other pilots and the sounds of humanity in motion. The temperature of the glass felt pleasant against his skin. 

“Heero?” 

“Mmm?” 

Quatre, the most responsible driver of them all, turned and studied him from the driver’s seat. “What is it that is bothering you?” 

Damn Quatre and his rather acute intuition. “I have a mission. The logistics are tricky, I’ve been thinking about them.”

Quatre nodded, accepting the answer. “If it’s anything that I can help with, just tell me. I’m always here to help. I can get cash from the family if your usual sources can’t get what you require.” 

Nodding again, Heero gave the barest of smiles. He had learned that others reacted well to that particular expression. It was communicative without being specific. In fact, if his usual sources did not pan out, he might take the other pilot up on his offer for financing. 

***

Dining at the restaurant Heero listened to the buzzing of the people speaking around him more than the conversation occurring at his table. They were not discussing anything of tactical relevance, and therefore he had no interest in the discourse. The drone and hum around him reminded him vaguely of cicadas in summer. Setting his napkin on the table and nodding to his compatriots he headed back toward the men’s room. There were base functions that required his attention. 

The men’s room proved pleasantly unoccupied. Taking a place at a urinal he went about his business, staring at the wall, passively attentive to his surroundings. It was unlikely that anyone would bother them here, but there were no guarantees. In the background someone came in and disappeared into a stall. Zipping up, he went to wash his hands and paused. Something had caught his peripheral vision and he was not entirely certain what had attracted his attention in the first place. Had he not known better he would have assumed that someone else had walked in quietly and passed behind him as he turned. 

Surreptitiously glancing in the mirror to make sure that there were no others he confirmed his solitude and shook his head. Another small motion in his periphery caused him to turn sharply in that direction, to find nothing other than the tiled walls. The mirror reflected nothing. Pressing his lips together in consternation he rested his hand along the butt of the gun tucked along his back. The shirt was baggy enough to conceal it. The person who had come in earlier gave him a strange look, washed their hands and exited the bathroom swiftly. Left alone again, he prepared to depart and rejoin the group. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her. 

Standing slightly behind him with her head down, apparently looking at his heels, a woman stood. She dressed strangely, in a flowing gossamer wrap that hung down around her slender body in liquid layers. Other than the strange clothes she was otherwise unadorned. As she glanced up over his shoulder in the mirror and caught his eyes, a startled look crossed her face. 

Heero heard his pulse thudding dully in his ears, and felt his muscles getting ready to move. It was the same quiet headspace he entered at any point that combat was imminent. Other than the air-conditioning and the conversational hum of his fellow humans out in the restaurant proper, there were no other sounds in the bathroom. The one most notably absent was the sound of another person breathing. Glancing at the mirror again, he found her in the same place, looking at him curiously. Knowing on an intellectual level that there could not be anyone else in the bathroom with him, he rested forward on his palms, fingers curled around the lip of the sink, staring levelly at the mirror. “What is this?” The question came out soft and slightly aggressive. The only other plausible explanation was that the mirror had been rigged as an LCD and this second person was being transmitted in. The reason behind her transmission was his current concern. 

The girl in the mirror turned, long-fingered hands resting along his shoulders, curling slightly above his clavicles. / You can see me? / 

Heero recoiled violently backward, senses arguing with him. The voice that he heard as plainly as he could hear everything else had no source. It did not have the nuances of something broadcasted, either. If it were a small speaker he would be hearing the slight electronic perversion of spoken words. The voice rang out disturbingly clear, and approximately behind his shoulder. There was no way that anyone would have rigged his clothes, there were only his fellow pilots at the safe house. 

In stepping back he should have run into the person who belonged to the voice and yet only air greeted him. Perhaps the mission he had been assigned earlier was affecting his judgment. If that were the case he would have to talk to Sally Po and get something for his mood. Irrationality did not allow for the successful completion of missions. Peering once more into the mirror he found his female companion looking at him again. 

/There is no way that you ought to be able to see me. You’ve never seen me before. This is highly curious, Heero./ 

Feeling off-balance and slightly resentful of the other’s calm tone he faced the mirror. Talking to air seemed too absurd. “Who are you, and why are you transmitting through a mirror? How did you know that I’d be here?” 

Wrapping an arm around his chest, the invisible woman smiled, laying her head along his shoulder with an air of patient affection. / If I told you the truth you’d get angrier. There isn’t a rational answer that will satisfy you. The mirror isn’t rigged. I knew that you would be here because I followed you here. I know your cover-name because I’ve always been with you. I know everything about you. /

Heero decided that he would play along with his hallucination for the moment. He knew with certainty that he would be making an appointment with Sally to fix whatever was wrong with him. “Who are you?” 

She closed her eyes, head still resting on Heero’s shoulder. / I was not given a name, Heero. You may name me if you so desire. Otherwise, pay no attention to me. I highly doubt that you’ll see me or the others again. This must be a fluke. In fact, it is probably better if you assume that I am a hallucination. /

Heero felt his brows furrow with displeasure. “The others? What does that mean? How many others? Are all of them following me?” 

Grinning, she opened her eyes. / There’s no way to sneak things past you, is there? I was hoping that you’d ignore that part. There are three others. Again, the reasons for our presence are illogical. It’s nothing you would believe. We’ll talk about it another time if you see me again. / 

Pausing thoughtfully, she patted his shoulders, a look of enthusiasm spreading over her face. / I’ll make you a deal. If you do see me again, you have to name me. If you name me, I’ll explain everything to you when you are ready to hear it. That is a great deal of maybes, but this is most likely an isolated incident, and none of it will need to be addressed. / 

Heero shook his head, turning away from the mirror and the soft voice in his head. Heading back out into the restaurant he wound his way through tables and people, feeling dizzy. There had never been a point in his life where he had experienced extended auditory hallucinations. Coupled with visual hallucinations he felt fairly certain that something was wrong with him. The possibility existed that he might have been drugged. Perhaps they had been pumping something through the air in the bathroom. The likelihood of that, however, was not high. 

Taking a seat, he nodded to the others and addressed the food that had come while he had been occupied in the bathroom. His fellows continued their conversation, oblivious to the strange happenings. 

Pointing vaguely in Quatre’s direction with a forkful of salad, Trowa looked at the blonde. “So, how have the translations been going?” 

Looking up from his soup, Quatre smiled. “Well. Thank you for asking.” 

Curiosity piqued, Heero verged on asking about to ask when Wufei beat him to it. “Translations?”

Quatre glanced over at him. “Someone in my family was at some of our ancestral property. They found heaps of old documentation. The sister in charge of the Earth properties has been digitizing all of it for me. Out of the kids I’ve got some of the best linguistic skills, so they asked me to do dual translations against the ones that another sister is attempting. The assumption being that between the pair of us we would get something close to accurate. 

The text itself is highly challenging. It requires a lot of reference and crosschecking. The language has evolved dramatically from that time. I’m translating the papers in my free time. It’s fascinating stuff. Apparently I had a grandfather somewhere way back in history who was fabulously insane. They thought he was an oracle or something like that. He would say things and it would be noted down, even the very mundane. 

From what I’ve been reading some of them sound like word for word dictation. Some of the scripts come in mid-subject. I can only assume that someone dove for a pen when he started speaking.” 

Heero found himself quickly loosing interest in the subject. Addressing his food he let his thoughts wander. 

*** 

Starting awake, Heero stared into the darkness and tried to parse out what had woken him. Pausing in the darkness near him, Duo glanced down. Silhouetted in the faint light emanating from the bathroom nightlight he squatted down. Leaning in close, he whispered, long wisps of hair touching the sheets. “Didn’t mean to wake you man. Sorry. Just passing through to get my laptop. I left it in here.” 

Giving the faintest nod, Heero sat up slowly, popping his shoulders and staring into the murky space in front of him. Duo retrieved the previously mentioned case and headed out of the room with soft barefooted steps. Pushing the sheets down his legs and freeing them, he ventured into the bathroom to get a glass of water. Filling the glass he swallowed mechanically, the coolness of the liquid sliding down his throat. He imagined he could trace the route of its travel, down his esophagus, slowly winding through his intestines, eventually dispersing into his skin to help hydrate the body at large. Micro-functions of his body helped to distract him from larger worldly concerns. 

Glancing furtively into the mirror he felt relieved to see that no one else stood in the bathroom with him. Behind his reflection stood an inverted shower, toilet, and a small trash can standing guard next to the plunger. Placing the cup down with a ringing tap, he retreated to his room. 

The second awakening of the evening proved stranger than the first. Opening his eyes proved Herculean, sluggishness clouding his reactions. Unsure whether he was dreaming or awake, Heero forced himself to focus on something tactile, brushing his fingers over the sheets. Stillness filled the room, the darkness hanging thick enough to touch. No other noise drifted through the vents; he surmised the others had retired to bed. Usually a sound sleeper without an alarm to wake him, he glanced around from his prone position trying to understand why consciousness had arrived to him once more. 

The silhouettes awarded him the answer that he sought. A group of them clustered near the window, postures relaxed. Yet, what he looked upon confused him. Their bodies were disjointed, something fundamentally wrong with their shoulders, as if they had objects projecting over their heads from their backs. The shadows played off of textured surfaces. 

Wings. Heero made the sudden cognitive jump. The familiar imagery had taken a moment to reconcile with reality. The group standing over near the window were winged, the strange texture on the bulbous shapes behind him due to the feathers catching the light. One of the figures detached, advancing toward him. 

Feeling bodily numb from lethargy, Heero’s hands still moved with precision. Sliding his hand under his pillow he grabbed his gun, clicking the safety off in silence. Watching the figure approach, he sat up slowly. 

As the shadows changed, he found the face of his mirror-woman from earlier. Standing in front of him, she gave a nod, moving to kneel next to the bed where Duo had squatted earlier in the evening. Folding her arms and resting her chin on them she shook her head. /The gun won’t do anything. In fact I highly recommend against firing it. If you score a head-shot on me from where you’re sitting, the bullet will pass through me completely and travel through the opposite wall to lodge itself handily in Duo Maxwell’s spine. You are friends with that man so I would caution you against the action. If you absolutely must shoot me, then I’ll move in a different direction so that there will be no collateral damage. / 

Stunned and a bit confused Heero shook his head, gun still level and steady. It was not a position he could keep for long without his arm starting to tremble. “This isn’t real,” surprised at the amount of emotion he allowed into the statement he centered himself on the bed, trying to find a place of balance from which to fire. He had no intention of being knocked on his back from recoil. 

The woman observed him in silence, lips curved upward in an amused smile. 

/ We had a deal / , she ventured after several tense moments. The clock in the background had advanced a minute. Heero noted this with mechanical detachment. 

His arm began to tremble slightly. / You’ve seen me again, and therefore you owe me a name. And once you’ve named me I’ll start explaining all of this. / She unfolded her arms, sitting back on her heels. 

/ Well, at least I’ll explain some of it to you. You still have the wild-deer look. You get it when you’re completely out of your depth and trying to compensate. / Folding her hands in her lap, she watched him. After a few more minutes had passed by, the red numbers marching onward in their erstwhile fashion, she sighed, closing her eyes. 

Feeling absolutely absurd, Heero blurted out the first female name that came to his mind. “Natsumi. Your name is Natsumi. Are you happy now?” 

Natsumi, so named, unleashed a brilliantly warm smile. It brought a shine to her eyes, and she fanned her wings out expansively, body language exuding pleasure. / To be given my own name. I wouldn’t have thought that you’d lost so much of yourself, Heero. Who would have expected it? Ah well. I am a person of my word. What would you like to know? / 

Letting his gun down and clicking the safety back on, Heero dropped his voice, aware that all of his roommates were light sleepers and likely to ask him later who he was talking to. A niggling hunch gave him the impression that they probably were not privy to the other side of the conversation. 

“What are you?” 

Natsumi chuckled, her shoulders lightly shaking from the sound. / Angels. What else would we be? / 

*** 

Duo lay on his back cradled in the pillows with a cold-pack laid over his eyes. The temperature allowed bearable existence. The air around him pushed in tight, invading his throat, heavy against his skin. The brain-needles lurked, deep under his skin. In the room to the left, Heero was speaking in his sleep. Over the years of rooming together Duo noted his tendency to speak while unconscious. He supposed that there were too many words and thoughts trapped inside of the Wing-pilot’s head and when the iron fist of his self-control was loosed by sleep they slipped out in groups. 

While the house was too hot, the outside was nice. Scattered breezes whispered and murmured through the trees, the sounds of leaves dancing reminiscent of the spring rains. Being on Earth was always a pleasure for a colony boy. Slowly reaching up to remove the cold-pack from his eyes he glanced up at the ceiling, illuminated by an elongated rectangle of moonlight. Shadows cris-crossed the space, branches and wires blocking the path of the light. 

He sensed the movement at the end of his bed before he saw it. Tensing slightly, he peered down to the extreme of his vision to try and discern the reason for the change in the pressure of the mattress. A small shape distorted the light near the foot. Knowing there were no animals currently residing at their residence, he drew his legs up slowly, easing up into a sitting position. Reaching under his pillow he cursed himself silently. His gun was in the gun-safe across the room. Unlike the perfect soldier, he did not sleep with loaded weapons near his head. Under normal circumstances it seemed to be a recipe for disaster. 

The object turned, bigger than a cat, but smaller than an average sized dog. The realization that the figure was child-shaped swiftly arrived. The child sat forward on its palms, leaning toward him, hands intruding on the valley formed by his slightly-splayed feet. Sitting up on its knees, it waited. With images of children with bomb-vests fresh in his mind from the evening news, Duo eased a hand slowly over to get a light on. 

Illuminated, the child’s face elicited a choked snort of fear. Eyes that mirrored his own in color fixed on his face. Still wearing the nasty blood-stiffened tank-top from earlier, she grinned, the movement slightly hindered by the scar-tissue around her lips. During their first encounter, his attention had fixated on her wings and their alien nature. Now, given a chance to study her there were a multitude of small indications of violence spread over her body. Small, circular scars sat at even intervals around her lips and mouth, half-healed bruises flowered over her arms, back and shoulders. Yet, there was no fear of a bigger person that an abuse victim ought to have. No sign of flinching or a concern of shielding herself. The way that she sat indicated patience, even boredom. 

“What the fuck are you doing here kid? You can’t be here. You were in a fucking dream!” Logically, he should have talked in greater volume. If Heero heard him, he would come over. Duo understood why he kept his voice reigned into a harsh whisper even in the face of absurdity. If Heero came over and Duo was addressing the air, then the look would come over his face again. The same look that had occasionally crossed his features on missions, when he heard Duo screaming at the dead, or talking to himself in the hangar when he thought he was alone. The Deathscythe pilot disliked that look immensely. It was the same one that the aid workers had given him when everyone died at the church, the one that communicated clearly that there was something wrong with him. 

Flopping forward onto her elbows, she looked up at him, fanning out her wings teasingly. /I’m here to help you. You know that somewhere on the inside, I think. If you don’t understand that, then we’re all fucked. / Adjusting her wings to a more comfortable position she looked up through her bangs at him. 

/ Don’t look at me like that, you can understand me. / 

Once her lips had started moving, he was compelled to infer the meaning. He could not help but do it. After picking up the skill of lip-reading it was like overhearing a foreign language spoken amongst the normal buzz of conversation. The very difference highlighted it and made it impossible to ignore. 

“I can understand you, but I don’t want to and I don’t like this.” 

/ If you liked it, I might actually be a bit worried for you. What do you remember, Duo? / 

Tilting his head at an odd angle he tossed his braid back over his shoulder where it belonged. It had a habit of creeping forward and lying along his neck like a snake. “What do you mean, what do I remember?” 

Her mouth pushed down into a petulant arc as she pouted at him. / Stop being so belligerent and answer my question. This is important. What do you remember? /

Staring into her expectant face he realized that his hallucination was serious about whatever it was that her agenda was. Shaking his head and glancing at her he replied. “I am serious. I do not have any clue what it is that you expect me to remember. Are you talking about the dream that we met in? Perhaps you were there are some attack site? What is it that you are, anyway? What I see in front of me is some weird child-demon-kid-torture-porn star. Or something like that.” 

She looked at him blankly for a moment, and then a fit of silent giggles overtook her. The previously pouting mouth turned up into a smile, her eyes danced. Holding her middle, she ducked her head, shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Recovering her composure after a length, she glanced back up at him. / I have been called many things, but that particularly long and colorful descriptor is not one of them. Where ever did you come up with that? / 

Resting his head on his knees, he gazed back at her. “There are all sorts of interesting things in here. It just takes one unfortunate word to set them tumbling around. And then the strangest things come out.” Lightly raping his knuckles against his skull, Duo offered a peaceable smile over in her direction. The scenery had not trended toward nightmarish and she had not said anything too bizarre either. If she was to be a frequent visitor he felt that peace was imperative. If she visited too much more frequently he would need a trip to the psychiatric ward; fun as hallucinations were, they tended to affect his concentration. 

/ It really is not good that you do not remember what you must. It will cause you pain in the future. But I suppose there are small mercies in the world. I have seen them before, so it should not come as a surprise to me. Yet I digress. / 

Tilting his head curiously at the girl, he frowned back at her. “Could you perhaps explain to me what it is that I’m supposed to know about? Maybe a hint would help to jar my memory. I don’t always trust it. I’ve been hit on the head a lot in my life.”

She crawled forward slowly, placing palm in front of palm in a slow advance toward him. Sitting close, she gazed up at him through her lashes in a facsimile of flirting. Her proximity bothered him, and set his teeth on edge. The desire to get the clock off of the night-stand and hit her hard in the head with it lingered on the edge of his mind but remained simply a thought.

/ I do not think that you would have any concept of what I might tell you. There is a lot of horror in the stories that I possess. I come from a place made out of stuffy, narrow spaces, pain, searing light and swallowing darkness. My home is the place where the balance for all of the good in the world lives. 

Without suffering, humans would not truly embrace happiness that is gifted to them. Without pain to contrast contentment there would simply be apathy. Therefore, we exist. I come from the world of nightmares and I have been sent to you. /

Folding her hands on her lap, observed him with silent intensity. At length her plump lips parted and she continued, having not received a reaction along the lines of what she expected. 

/ Long ago there was a boy who was acquainted with one of the lords of my world. I was his - / She paused; something about her narrative quite visually disturbing her. / - vassal. I think that is an acceptable term for what it was. Not so much of a domestic as someone that was disposed to do whatever he wished. By proxy I was this boy’s vassal as the two of them had a standing agreement. Don’t get any stupid ideas about blood-contracts or any of that kind of crap. It wasn’t that. I can see it on your face. / 

Duo felt his mouth twisting in consternation. With everything the tiny monstrous thing was telling him, he possessed no frame of reference. The only things that he could compare her words to were stories and film. “Well what would you expect me to think of?” 

She shook her head, manner implying his childishness. It was the same sort of look he had seen on parents listening to the fanciful ideas of their offspring regarding concepts advanced beyond their understanding. / You assume that humans have a say in what happens to them. There are some things that simply are. Forces affect your lives that you could not comprehend, let alone control. This was much the way of the boy and my lord. My lord chose his small companion, and the small companion abided with the pain of my lord’s companionship. None of the opposing forces had a stake in the boy and so my lord went unchallenged. /

Attempting for the umpteenth time to distance himself from the nightmare-child on his bed and butting his back against the backboard as he scooted, he frowned. “What you’re saying does not make sense. If where you come from exists in opposition to the light and things and beings from your world act on their own accord, aren’t there then beings of light that are there to counterbalance and undermine you people?” 

Fanning her wings wider, a crooked smile crossing her mouth, she cocked her head slightly, and shook it, expression sympathetic and verging on condescending. 

/ That reality is a comforting one, isn’t it? But the simple answer is ‘no’. The boy was not worth it. He offered nothing, he had nothing to give and no one wanted him. He was a trite and unnecessary existence. Beings of our worlds do not exist to serve humans. We are slightly affected by humans, and can very profoundly and efficiently use them; but we are not chartered or required to watch them or do anything to assist or harm them in one way or another. You can either imagine we have better things to do with our time. Or, if you are a pessimist, you may also understand that your world is our playground, and other than a few scattered higher-ups who half-heartedly observe, we do what we will with you. 

So my lord took the boy and used him to his own purpose most successfully in what you could equate to a territorial dispute. Light does not necessarily imply good. In most cases it does, yes, but not always. Light by its very nature burns and destroys, much as shadows envelop and drown. The disputing party of this old disagreement was an agent of the light. The dispute itself? Was quite heinous. / 

Folding his arms over his ribs, Duo ground his teeth together, the pressure pulling the muscles along his jaw. He felt oddly reassured by the solidity of the physical sensation. “This is all creepy as nothing I have heard before, or will probably hear after this – with the exception of in fiction – but what does this have to do with you?” 

Tapping her fingers against her mouth and wiggling her shoulders she giggled again. / So practical when you’re scared. I like that about you. You start getting orderly, when really you’re one of the most disorganized people in this house, aren’t you? Well, all right my frightened friend. I will tell you why I am here. /

Sitting up, tugging at her tank top so that the tops of her pale thighs were not exposed, she looked officious, settling her shoulders back and staring directly at him. / You need to get ready, Duo. My lord will touch you again. And when he does, everything will change. I could continue to blow your mind with truths of the reality in which you live, but we’ve talked enough for this evening. We’ll use the coming days to acclimate. Then we will act. There are things that need to be done. And stories that I’ll need to tell you. That is if you want to live. / 


	4. Something the Boy Said

There were only two bathrooms in the safe house. This was a problem. Duo shifted from bare foot to bare foot, digging his toes into the carpet anxiously. Quatre was in the other bathroom, soaking in a bubble-bath. The blonde had peacefully offered to avert his eyes, but Duo felt somewhat awkward about whipping it out and peeing in front of Quatre. The Sandrock pilot had the air of some sort of aristocratic cat accustomed to sleeping on pillows and drinking cream from fancy bowls. In light of that impression Duo found it was hard to be vulgar around him. Granted, in an emergency Duo would gladly take a piss anywhere. Into a bush, or off the side of a building was one thing in moments of duress; but, he was of a closed-door sort of man in civilization. 

The sound of water hitting the tile was maddening. Rapping his knuckles sharply against the door, he spoke through gritted teeth. 

“Heero. What is my ETA on the bathroom?”

 

“Approximately three minutes and thirty seconds, Maxwell.” 

Sighing deeply, Duo stared at the ceiling. Hearing the fairly accurate countdown did nothing to alleviate the pressure on his bladder or his mounting irritation. “Heero, why is it that you have such a precise understanding of how long this is going to take? Why can’t you just finish now?” 

“I am following the recommended time for lathering on my shampoo.” 

Throwing his hands up into the air, and then smiling because he had enacted a turn of phrase, Duo padded down the hall toward the kitchen. Heero was another one that did not care one way or the other about sharing bathroom space. Duo carried no doubt in his mind that the fellow would walk bare-ass through a military base if need be to finish a mission or objective. Clothes, pain, feelings; none of these things seemed to be a requirement to Heero Yuy. Banishing the thought of naked Heero charging through halls commando in the truest sense of the word, Duo made his way into the kitchen. 

He could nibble on a bit of breakfast and then haul ass up the stairs and get into the bathroom. It was a solid plan, one that would serve him well. The events of last night sat heavily in the back of his mind, forcefully disregarded. 

His tiny demon had woven him such stories. Stories about possession and plagues. About angels and battles. It sounded like a combination of a child's fancies and biblical hysteria. Unfortunately, the tiny thing was certainly neither fanciful, nor a child. Simply diminutive in stature, her presence, body language and demeanor reeked of age and cynicism. The stories though? Those he could not find in him to believe true. 

Popping toast into the toaster he rocked forward onto the balls of his feet, feeling the tension in his toes as he stretched upward. The edge of his braid tapped his butt, and he reminded himself to pull his hair out of the tie and brush it out once before beginning the day in earnest. Even though they were at a safe house, he had contacts to maintain, some shopping to be done as the other pilots would be occupied. Appearances, at least in a small sense, mattered. Pulling his phone out, he scrolled through digital updates, punching in a couple of pass codes for the encrypted and restricted feeds. Nothing of importance arrived that day. 

Upstairs, the bathroom door opened. Forcing the toast to pop up early, he sprinted up the stairs, skidding around the upper edge of the bannister and pushing a towel-clad Yuy out of his way. “Four minutes!” He crowed, over the slamming of the door. Heero's reply was both non-committal and muffled through the door. Duo dismissed it. Sated, he rinsed his hands and jumped. Sitting on the granite counter top, the little demon waited, staring at him like a weasel observing a particularly succulent egg. /You're pretty big. Bet the ladies like you. You should get it pierced. The ladies like that too./ 

Revulsion traveled through his body fast, hand diving down to cover himself as he fiddled with his pajama strings. “Fuck that's disgusting. You're like three.” 

The little one laughed, closing her eyes against the force of her chuckles. /I was little once, I suppose. Doesn't stop me from enjoying your... sizable gifts. Bet Yuy would love it. Though I do suppose you would have to be quiet so as not to disturb the roommates. Shove his face in a pillow. You want to. Don't you?/ 

Flushing and fighting a fierce irritation simultaneously, Duo turned the cold water on, splashing his face to dispel the heat on his skin. Blushing like some idiot giggling teenager was not something that serious terrorists did. Neither was engaging delusions, but he could only deal with so many things he ought not be doing at once. “You are vulgar. Go away and don't come back.” 

Rolling her shoulders back and leaning like an adult, the child shook her head. /You know I can't do that. In a very awkward way, I am yours. I'm here to guide and help prepare you for things to come. Just, think of me as your lovely assistant./ She batted her lashes in what he assumed was an attempt to look sexy.

“There's nothing lovely about you,” he replied coolly, toweling off his face. “I really hate to be rude to ladies, but you are no lady and you are certainly not deserving of any sort of civility. Stop talking about my dick and just disappear back into the shadows you crawled out of.” 

Flicking a wing in irritation, she gazed through hooded eyes at him. /And if I came from the shadowy recesses of your mind, what then, Duo Maxwell? Would you be so irritated if you were the one subconsciously thinking about your penis and apocalyptic mysticism?/ 

Duo leveled his best sociopath look at her, feeling the expression and personality drain from his face, his mouth relaxing into a tiny, tight smile. “I know my mind. And you are no part of it. Just go and die, you bizarre little bitch. If you won't go away on your own, I'm sure that I will find happy pills that will make you. I know a couple of good doctors.” 

Pleased, rather than affronted, she nodded approvingly. /That is much more like it. You're beginning to sound a bit more like yourself. I will leave. We will speak again soon. I have a story to tell you./

Glancing away from her in disgust, raking a brush through his hair, he was gladdened to turn back to the sink and find no tiny shadow-denizen perched on the cheerful granite counter top with the duckie soap-dispenser. It was not a place for her, this was a child's bathroom. The odd feeling that her presence made it dirty and unsafe only fueled the irritation that had begun early in the morning having to wait years to pee. Just behind his left temple a dull ache had started up, and the speed of the world began to decelerate. “Amazing,” he snarled, brushing his teeth and getting ready for the day. 

***

Soaked, soft, and groomed, Quatre sat at the breakfast table, percolated coffee in hand, scanning the global news feeds before beginning his perusal of the colony news. Some of it was irritatingly difficult to come by. There was obvious governmental bias, some information wholly wiped from public consumptions. He had a list of blogs to read after the official news sources. Then he would contact his people and begin the day. No new transmissions had arrived detailing further missions. Wufei and Trowa had been called out for a team effort. Something about dolls. All of the specs had not yet arrived to them, and Quatre was concerned. Any sort of an upgrade to the opposing forces made their piloting even more difficult than it usually was. 

Seeing the acrobat leave into the early-morning light made him uncomfortable. Wufei was a ridiculously fierce partner, fast enough to keep up with even the most capricious and deft pilots, so Trowa was in no great danger. Still, the anxiety remained a knot in his torso, and an occasional fine tremor of his fingers. They were friends, the sort of friends that happened without effort and remained solid as a geographic formation, as if they were born to be united, and in their proximity to one another causing them to be stronger still than they would be apart. Gravitating away from the news he opened a message from his sister. Apparently another one of the archived reports had been translated. Grinning, he searched for an attachment. A teasing note at the end of the communication promised a full transcription when she had time. “You are naughty,” he murmured, glancing up as Duo entered the kitchen. 

As entrances went, this one was not a grand one. The Deathscythe pilot radiated irritation and ill-feeling. Shaking his head, vaguely, the blonde glanced up at him attempting to alleviate some of the mood with his own, better one. “I ate your toast,” he admitted in the lightest tone he could manage without breaking into a grin. “So I think I will make you french toast instead. Would this be an acceptable trade?” 

Staring balefully through his bangs, Duo nodded. “Five and three out for the day?” Absently he borrowed Quatre's data-pad, scrolling through the news without appearing to look at it. 

Going through the cupboards, Quatre allowed himself a slow nod. “Yes.” 

Duo's voice sounded behind him. “You're worried?” 

Pressing his fingers tightly around a bottle of cinnamon, Quatre nodded, lamenting the lack of actual cinnamon in the house. The fresh herb, expensive as it was remained the better choice of the two. “Wouldn't you be?” 

“Mm-mm. Not at all.”

Quatre cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl, beginning the mix for toast. Cooking was a hobby of his. Never having needed to cook before, he felt it was a useful skill to posses, though his prowess in that arena was certainly nothing to boast about. “I don't see why.” 

“You don't have the kind of faith needed for this job, Quatre. I occasionally wonder why you took it in the first place.” 

Snorting, Quatre opened up a recipe site, checking the ideas he had for breakfast against the reality of the collective knowledge the internet possessed. “Grew up wealthy. Never had to fight for anything, never needed anything or wanted for it. So it's only natural I would grow up to be a terrorist, right?” Shaking his head and adding a dash more of an ingredient, he went on, addressing the bread more than Duo. “There are things worth fighting over. Similarly there are things worth worrying over. You all are the bravest, stupidest and most talented guys I have ever worked with, save my personal guards. I ought to worry when you aren't in safe situations.” 

Duo pushed the pad away, cupping his face in his hands. “Thank you momma, I promise we'll play nice.” he deadpanned. “I swear that you worry about us too much. Beyond that, if you trust us so much, trust that Trowa and Chang have it. They're the best of us, in some ways. Opposite ends of the spectrum though.” 

Carefully laying the sacrificial first piece of toast into the mix, Quatre nodded. “You won't get any argument out of me there. Have you slept recently? You still look haggard.” 

“Aw, after I primp and groom for you and everything?” Duo's sarcasm bit harshly. “No. Haven't been sleeping too good. I think it may just be that we're in one place for so long. It's weird.” 

“Certainly.” Quatre demurred, not wanting to further exacerbate Duo's atypical irritation. “What are the plans for today?” 

Abandoning the data pad, Duo lay his head down onto his crossed arms, his voice muffled. “I'm thinking I'll stay on standby in case the boys need anything. I have to touch base with a couple of my contacts and make sure they are still good. Beyond that, I think I'm going grocery shopping and catching a nap. I'm exhausted. Fly-boy is up to something, he's already gone.” 

Quatre crossed the kitchen in silence, resting a hand on the back of his head. “Sleep. I'll wake you up if something goes off.” 

Duo shook his head slightly. “Couldn't sleep even if I want to. Too many ghosts today.” 

The hand on his hair withdrew itself. Quatre went back to his cooking, utensils quietly clinking against the pot. “That's a strange thing to say.” 

Duo did not reply. The tempo of his breath lengthening out into deep, slow inhalations. Quatre stuck the lame toast onto a plate, shoving it off to the side carefully, laying a fresh piece of bread into the batter, and adding it to the pan. Something about the safe-house bothered him. He knew that everyone would be all right. It was a logical assumption-- there had been no intelligence informing them that the location had been compromised, nor had the neighborhood been acting oddly. And yet. Crossing the fancifully patterned tile, he softly brushed his hands along Duo's back. “Toast.” 

Straightening himself out, Duo pressed the butts of his palms to his eyes. “Do me a favor and hand me the bottle up there with Luther DeChrist as the name on it.” 

Quatre quickly scanned the drug's name and committed it to memory as he passed over the requested prescription. “Luther?” 

Duo flashed him a grin, carefully digging into his toast. “A man has to have some sort of fun.” Forgoing the coffee that was already prepared in the pot, Duo went for the cabinet that housed tea, rifling through until he found an acceptable herbal. Pinching a silk-bag between his fingers, he started a kettle of water and waited at the counter leaving the toast stranded on the table. Quatre arched his eyes. “The caffeine acolyte? Drinking herbal? Is the world ending?” 

Duo dropped the bag into the water, watching the tea steep. “I've been having really hellacious migraines lately. Moreso than normal. 's what the meds are for, and I've been reading. Some caffeine helps, but I'm wondering if it is a trigger for me. I really have no idea.” 

Setting the dirty dishes into the sink, Quatre tapped his chin thoughtfully. “You probably should go and see Sally. I think that it's time.” 

Obviously fond of their old Oz contact, from the way that the smile crossed his face, Duo shook his head. “I don't like to contact her unless it is absolutely necessary. Don't want to bring trouble to her door, you know?” Quatre knew. Being in contact with them was dangerous. Oz was out there, as was Romefeller. The less that one had to do with any part of the war effort, the safer one was. 

“Certainly. I understand what you are getting at. But if not her, you ought to see someone. I'm not sure who gave you the prescription, but some of the side-effects on your medication are concerning. ” 

Wrinkling his nose at Quatre, Duo rose. “Concern has been noted. I'm heading up. Have to do the contacting now while the satellites are in range.” Disappearing out of the kitchen, the Deathscythe pilot retreated into the confines of the house. Turning on the sink-full of dishes and idly wishing for the serving staff from home, Quatre began filling the sink, watching the water slowly creep up the porcelain edges. The act of physically washing dishes came strange. With the technology from home—instant sanitizers, dissolving gels and other water-saving implements designed to keep the commodity for other purposes, washing dishes seemed to be a luxury. 

Chores taken care of, the blonde returned to his tablet. Pulling up the translations, he allowed himself the luxury of reading. 

[ --The plague dogs will come today. Roaming out of the hills and down the road, away from His domain. 

They will accompany their Master. And their Master will ride on a steed that is not beast, but nor is it a man. The ridden will say nothing, and once the others have seen him, they too will say nothing. There is nothing that we can do to avert the coming. The only option is to flee. 

You cannot bribe the ridden. 

You are stupid aren't you, little man. I have no want of your money and no sympathy for your plight. ] 

Breaking away from the transcript, Quatre had to wonder at the speaker. He seemed to have an air of superiority about him. The way that he spoke reeking of formality and privilege. However, the context of what he discussed seemed to be pure fantasy. 

“Plague dogs indeed.” Murmuring, Quatre shook his head. “Unless you were speaking in codes about covert military operations, I think sir, you were probably a fraud.” 

Closing his feed, Quatre fell still, the air around him draining away as if it had been pulled out of an airlock. In the stillness remaining he too held his breath, trying to match the pressure and lack of any other feeling. Sometimes, he found that he was sensitive to the shape of things upcoming, or to things that had happened. Going into new buildings sometimes proved challenging, the weight of previous lives layered in along with the foundation of the buildings themselves. Under his feet, sand shifted slightly. From far away, a door opened. Quatre forced breath out of his nose, trying to focus on the kitchen, the sounds of the dish-washer running, the texture of the table. A man walked into the room, face half-shrouded in a hood, green eyes glimmering through a veil of hair. 

“Quatre?” 

The reverie broke. Blinking eyes that had become painfully dry, the blonde looked around, trying to orient himself once more. “Yes?” 

Trowa who was not wearing a hood, nor standing in sand, leaned forward on the kitchen table gazing at Quatre with a slightly consternated expression. “What are you doing? You were sitting here and staring into space.” Rolling his shoulders, trying to banish the horror that the pressure had brought along, Quatre forcibly settled a smile onto his lips. “I don't know myself. I think I just went away for a moment. I was reading the translations that my sister sent over. Sadly, I think that our oracle was just some sort of pompous story-teller who was out to scare land-owners.” 

“And you find this surprising?” Trowa flipped a chair backward, settling across from Quatre. “It only makes sense that he would do something like that. It guarantees that he has stable income.” 

Reaching out to cup his hands around coffee turned unpleasantly cold, Quatre tapped his nails against the ceramic. “I do not feel like I come from a line of liars. I was always taught to be honest. My family has had very honorable dealings – always.” 

Trowa bridged the distance between them, resting his hands around Quatre's. He always marveled at the texture of his fellow pilot's hands. Where his were delicate, callouses only formed recently after scrambling, grabbing and swearing, Trowa's were strong and hardened. Tracing his forefingers along the tendons of Quatre's hands, the Heavyarms pilot stared him down. 

“The actions of your ancestors have no bearing on the sort of person that you are now. If they were something to be proud of, they can serve as a beacon to look up to. And if they were something that caused shame, then they are something to rise above. Either way? You live your own life. You do not live your life for your family, that certainly is apparent in the choices that you have made. Wouldn't you say so?”

Nodding, his vision momentarily obscured by the pale strands of his bangs, Quatre pressed his hands into the comfortable pressure of Trowa's palms. “It's true.” Everything about his team-mate was soothing. The intonation of his voice, the strength of his body, to his ability in battle. When Trowa was home, things were okay. Quatre simply wished that 'home' meant at his side frequently. The nature of the man was saturnine, sometimes he was with them, sometimes he wandered away into the stars. Perhaps one day, he would decide that the place he belonged was right where he had settled for the moment. 

The door announced another entrance. Wufei and Heero both walked in, Heero with an armful of groceries, and Wufei with a stack of documents. 

“Welcome, fellows. How did the day treat you?” 

Wufei glanced up, gave an elegant shrug and settled into the living-room, reading the fine print in his documentation. Quatre assumed building contracts or something of that nature. Heero carefully placed oranges into the fruit-bowl. “Effective. Yours?” 

“Not so effective,” Quatre admitted. “I wanted to read a bit further on the project that I mentioned at dinner. It is not proving to be an effective use of my time though. I may have to drop it.” 

Placing meat and a few other frozen items into the freezer, Heero shut the refrigerator resolutely. “Sometimes you must drop things until they prove useful. Anything come up for us?” 

Missions were obviously on the Wing pilot's mind. “Nothing yet. You'll be the first to know if it does.” 

“Hn. Maxwell?” 

Glancing at the clock, Quatre was internally shocked to find that he had lost several hours. The stillness felt like it had been momentary, no more than a handful of seconds. “Asleep upstairs, I think.” 

Heero departed the kitchen, presumably to go upstairs. 

Glancing over at Trowa, Quatre felt a sense of exhaustion pressing down on him. “I don't suppose that you would like to cook?” 

Trowa still had his hands gently encased in his own. Now with a task to complete, the Heavyarms pilot released them. “We'll see what Yuy brought home with him.” 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

The dogs were howling again. 

Duo often dreamed of them at odd times. Sometimes before missions that involved deep cover, sometimes before he had to go into new territory or systems that he had no recon on. They bayed and howled, running ahead of him, into the dark. Even as a child, Duo had felt an uneasy kinship with dogs. Both he and they often had slunk through junkyards and back-alleys, neither welcome nor unwelcome. Instead, he and they were most often ignored, so long as they did not steal or disrupt those nearby. 

A weight settled between his shoulders, and Duo idly wondered if his demoness was back. Or perhaps one of the dogs had landed on him from the rubble above. 

“Maxwell.” 

Forcing his eyes open was painful. The glare of his computer screen seared his pupils, and Duo closed them again. “Fuck. No. Fuck. Go away.” 

“You should not sleep on your keyboard. It will leave imprints on your face.” 

“Mmmmng.” 

A sense of vertigo replaced the sense of leaden exhaustion as Duo was bodily moved. “I'm not a girl. Goddamn, Heero stop it.” Mumbled protest aside, he felt a profound sense of relief as he arrived in the comfort of his bed. The pressure of his braided hair released, Heero presumably having undone the tie at the end. The surge of irritation at having to brush it out in the morning was outweighed by the profound sense of comfort at being taken care of. The mournful cries of the dogs faded into the back of his mind. 

“You need to go and see a physician.” 

Throwing an arm over his eyes, blocking out the light, Duo dissented. “No time. And I don't want to complicate cover. If we're stationary, I don't want records.” 

“Wufei and I will take care of it, if that is your concern. If your health is not up to standard, the team is not up to standard.” 

“I find it funny you think that we have become a team.” 

“I find it confusing that you do not. We are more effective as a group.” 

Logic. The fly-boy was very good at logic. “I don't even have the energy to argue with you. Fine. I'll go see a doctor. I think that I've just gotten hit a few too many times. Migraines. I get migraines all the time.” 

“Your medications suggest as much. Mr. DeChrist.” 

Waking a second time, unaware that he had dozed off in the first place, Duo found himself curled around Hero, an arm curled around his waist and cheek settled against his thigh. The Wing pilot had stationed himself on Duo's bed, and was attentively tapping at his laptop and scanning information scrolling by in several windows. “Mm. This is odd.” 

Heero glanced down and shrugged, fingers never leaving the keys. “You seemed comfortable. I did not feel it necessary to move you.” 

Duo felt a surge move through him, something that he did not dare put a name on. It felt very comfortable to be settled in his lap. The subtle mix of oil, blood, and sweat around Heero was the smell of war, and of victory. “I've been dreaming about the dogs.” 

“Oh?” Heero did not sound particularly interested, but his general vocal range did not often communicate any sort of interest in normal situations. 

“Yeah. It was me and the dogs a lot, back when I was a kid. There were a lot of orphans. Food was kind of hard to come by. If you followed the dogs, sometimes you could find some. The trick was not getting bitten by them.” 

“Mmm.” It was very like him, not to be sympathetic, or condescending. It was something about Heero that endeared him over other parts. Closing his eyes, and allowing the sounds of the keys to bring the restive languor back into him, he felt compelled to add a last thought. “The problem is, whenever I dream about them, something bad is going to happen.” 

“I take no stock in signs, Maxwell. I believe in science.” 

Duo did not feel like arguing, but glancing in one of the room's two mirrors, and seeing the intense bruising along Heero's shoulders, half exposed by the straps of his tank-top, he did wonder. They seemed poised on the brink of something heavy. Against his will, his eyes closed. 


	5. Instrument of Violence

Heero cancelled a few outstanding service requests. In another window, intelligence from several different sources listed itself in order of importance. He would be moving soon. Romefeller had launched a campaign under the name of Nova. Most of the countries on Earth were targets. He had not discussed strategy with his fellow pilots yet, but the time was quickly approaching for action. They would have to liaise with some of their Earth contacts. 

Still, the issue of Maxwell needed to resolve itself. All of them would have to be flying at their best. From what all of his sources were noting, they would be fighting a more complex challenge than other pilots. Automatons instead of other humans. Anything was fine by him. He would take it all down and triumph. The only problem with fighting advanced AI was that it did not tire. Not only did it not tire, it constantly analyzed tactics and maneuvers and it networked with others of its kind, compiling and planning. Every fight that they went into would serve as a liability. As pilots they would have to be quick and thorough. Every sortie would have to employ different tactics. For that he would require Quatre’s skills. Out of the five of them, he trusted the blonde to think like a machine. He also possessed the skills for tactics, but not in a grand scale. He preferred individual maneuvers over those for groups; it was easier to rely on his personal efficiency rather than gamble on the skills of his fellows, skilled as they were. The sort of planning that he assumed would be difficult regardless of the formations. The threat they faced was global, skirmishes breaking out in a wide variety of areas—storing the gundams safely while maintaining cover in itself was a Herculean effort. 

They were human. They needed to sleep. They could not think as fast, they did not have the benefit of the network. Rather than metal casings, they were wrapped up in a tissue-thin layer of skin that blossomed in angry red, green, and black colors every time it took a significant hit. If a helmet was fitted wrong, or interior pressure calibrated incorrectly, head-trauma would render them useless. The details swirled around his head. Maxwell’s deep breaths and the sound of the air-conditioning running composed the white-noise in the room. 

A hand landed on his shoulder, fingers gently applying pressure in a massaging motion. The angle of the hand was incorrect for it to belong to Maxwell. Forcibly closing his laptop, he glanced upward, trying to see the source of the touch in the mirrors. 

Natsumi, recently named, smiled back at him. /Things are getting more intense?/ 

Nodding, not willing to answer her out loud, he gestured at the laptop. / I have been reading over your shoulder. You are out-numbered. And you are concerned about… ‘mobile dolls’?/ 

Herro breathed out slowly, easing Duo into bed and carefully rising. Heading out of the bedroom and closing the door behind him, he looked at his companion, trailing at his side, feet not quite touching the ground. Her toes hovered millimeters above the carpet but did not effect in the plush fibers. “Mobile dolls are a type of computer. And mere humans are not always effective against computers. Many people are going to die, when commanders do not know how to effectively strategize against them. There will be a great deal of collateral damage as well – structural, and civilian. Computers will weigh risk against their objectives, some death will be acceptable. Even enemy pilots will occasionally stop to consider human cost. I cannot trust that computers will. I cannot trust that the programmers were given such objectives.” 

Natsumi quietly brushed her nails along the inside of Herro’s palm, fingers curling in a gently fond gesture. /It is difficult when they do that to you. They are trying to kill you?/ 

Heero nodded, one quick, jerky assent. “Yes.” 

/You will have to find an excellent tactician then. One that will assist you. If you cannot find one in the Earthly realms, I have someone that can help you. We cannot have you dying. / 

Heero felt a surge of irony wash through him, but he carefully kept the expression that would accompany it off of his face. “Certainly not.” 

Wufei walked around the corner, glancing up at him. “Certainly not?” 

Heero glanced up to meet his fellow pilot’s serious gaze. “I’m concerned about the tactics for the next mission. The information will be coming in any day now. I’m just waiting for it. We’re working against massively-networked AI, instead of commanders. Or worse, adaptive AI with direction from commanders. The difficulty will increase.” 

The Shenlong pilot folded his arms tightly over his chest. “Suits without pilots. There is no honor left. This sort of battle has no place in our world. If there are disputes they should be settled by the people that have them. All this is going to cause is suffering.” 

“They think that this is more ‘humane’. There are no pilots being hurt in the dolls. It is more efficient.” Heero understood the logic behind the dolls, and it was sound. Unfortunately that logic was being applied in a way that was not to his advantage. 

Chang stepped around him, with a stormy expression clouding his face. “I hate it. I hate all of them.” Walking briskly down the hall, he rounded a corner and headed to his room. 

/Is he always like that?/ 

Natsumi reasserted her presence by folding her arms over Heero’s shoulders, gently wrapping her hands around him in a light embrace. The edges of her feathers butted up against his arms, the texture strange against his bare skin. Idly Heero ran a finger along the edge of one of the large feathers, feeling the subtle give as the fibers readjusted themselves to pressure. 

“He is. He is sensitive. Fierce to the point of prideful-insanity. But beyond that, very sensitive. He has-” Heero paused, thoughtful. “An acute sense of justice. Things that he does not find just, deeply offend him.” 

Natsumi rested her chin against his shoulder. “He reminds me of someone that I once knew. People who have noble souls tend to act in that manner.” 

 

A week later, Heero found that he had been correct, in many regards. The dolls were learning, and in response they as a team had to change. 

He and Duo were working a short mission near a mountainous area on the border of the country the safe-house was located in. At least for that, he could be grateful. The only concern they had beyond avoiding death was a small village nestled in a valley that was not of strategic importance to the enemy—it did not boast a large highway, nor was it vital to the economy of the territory the dolls were encroaching upon. 

Somehow, the location of the Wing had been compromised. There were a few people on his list of contacts that would need to be interrogated, and if necessary, killed. Things were becoming too heavy for trust and tolerance. 

A proximity alarm screamed at his left, and he wheeled, only to watch the Deathscythe inelegantly crash into a crevasse, its beam-weapon crashing out of hand and to the ground. 

 

All Duo could hear was static. Static, and the quiet, high-pitched whine of something. 

Shock? The possibility crossed his hazy mind, but he rejected it. He did not feel overwhelmingly cold, nor was he shaking. Took a hit then? There was a possibility that the Deathscythe was structurally compromised, the angle on the video-feeds made more sense if he considered that he was on the ground. If that was the case, he was dead. As far as he understood they were blacklisted – the would kill the pilots and confiscate the gundams for parts. If that was the case he had to hit the self-destruct.

Not nearly as suicidal as others that he knew, the question of what had hit him forestalled any extreme action. He could not remember taking a hit serious enough to topple his suit—its internal balance sensors were excellent. They almost would have to have nuked him for the suit to have hit the ground. However, they were in sovereign territory. Romefeller would not risk taking such extreme measures over a very small border dispute. If there was anything that could get a large body of people mobilized, organized, and furiously angry it was nuclear weaponry; and while the nuked territory would be decimated, civil war in all other occupied territory would make takeover exceptionally difficult. 

Forcing himself into a full sitting position, he could not get his eyes to focus. Auras surrounded all of his back-lit monitors. The buzzing would not go away, and his hands felt numb. The frame of his suit rocked with the concussive blasts outside, artillery and energy scored the ground around his suit, some of it hitting the stationary suit and causing the disorienting movement that occurred around him. 

His sensors pinged, indicating a friendly suit. Glancing at the blinding displays, his heart skipped a beat. Wing registered in his line of vision, decimating dolls left and right, creating a safe space for him to get up. 

Get up. 

/You have to get up./ 

Duo jerked, realizing that he heard a voice in his head without seeing anyone around him. Soft hands rested on top of his own, several times smaller than his own comparatively. Glancing down he found a set of semi-transparent hands overlaying his own, slightly blackened fingertips softly pressed against his knuckles. Though he could see through the hands, the indents that they left in his skin were also visible, a physical indication of the impossible. Without looking fully into his lap, he understood the bizarre sensation of weight that suddenly was upon him. 

Words would not work their way past the syrupy, sick feeling in his mouth. Moving his hands in the direction that the smaller hands wanted them to go was hard enough. The controls felt too heavy. “Can’t.” Even to himself, his words sounded slurred and forced. Outside, Heero was fighting. The red dots on the screen indicating the forces that he faced were numerous. His mind understood, in the vaguest sense what he needed to do, but he could not force his hands to move to do it. 

/I will help you do it. Let me. / 

Relaxing his hands, he felt the alien sensation of them moving without his help. While she did not intuitively grasp what it was that he needed to do, she got the gundam upright. Once upright, he set it into auto-pilot. Howard and he had sat for a long time, discussing security and backup measures. It had been mutually decided that rather than going straight for the blow-up, if they could get the gundam to act of its own violation and defend itself until the pilot could resume cognitive function that would be a better service of their time and effort. 

The program in place had no idea what to do with the dolls. It had not been programmed with a scope of action wide enough to compare to theirs. However limited, that was what he had for the moment. Even turning his head too quickly sent him back into a tailspin of disorientation and dizziness. His hands continued furtively to try and assist the Deathscythe, pressing buttons as prompts came up, dealing with questions that required answering. Duo sat back through all of it, unhappily a numb spectator. 

Heero got in a shot with the game-ender. That was his personal name for the beam cannon affixed to Wing’s back. This confused the dolls enough to allow for escape. So far they had resisted using that particular part of Heero’s arsenal, preferring to keep the place between the gundam’s shoulders not a target. With the use and scope of the weapon, the dolls would know to try for it. Between his demon and a few feeble nudges on his controls, Duo got the Deathscythe up and moving enough to follow the Wing’s flight-path. Normally they did not do pairs or paired formation, but his brain could not cope with the idea of finding an individual escape trajectory. Just for a minute, he would follow, where it was safe. The mindset was all wrong. This was not how effective terrorism worked. All he could think of, though, was of safety and a quiet place to lay down.

The tiny hands on his own lightly squeezed, reassuring. / You can follow him for a second. Just for a second. It’ll be okay. I’ll tell you when we have to turn./ 

Duo nodded, lights and sounds surrounding him. 

Eventually, the tiny hands guided him on a separate path, taking him away from the charred edges of the Wing and toward one of the still-safe locations for his war-machine. Landing roughly, he could not even begin the process of covering the gundam. Hitting the cloaking option instead, he let his head roll back, and blackness overtook him; from where it had hidden in the in the cockpit, waiting to overtake him. 

 

“The fuck. What. The. Fuck. What the fuck was that all about? What was he doing?” The angry litany doing a loop in his head actually made it out and into words. Heero generally was not one to express outward frustration; but that had almost been an irreparable mess. 

Taking his lead-line down from the cockpit, he bounced off of Wing’s foot and made a fast sprint for the motorcycle he had stowed in the space. He needed to talk to Maxwell right then, but he was loathe to break radio-silence and sacrifice what diminishing safe cover they had. He could trust the team in the hangar to take care of his gundam. 

Hitting the road at speed, hunched forward over his bike he could feel his shoulders coalescing into a ball of knots, and anger curled his fingers almost clawlike around the throttle and handlebars. The whole scenario had been so incredibly unlike his wingman. 

Natsumi folded her arms delicately around his waist, without noticeably affecting the balance of the motorcycle. / You have to calm down. He did not do anything wrong on purpose nor was he trying to get you hurt. / 

Muttered through his helmet, Heero growled. “I don’t care about myself. I just care about the mission. And that was not the correct performance I’ve come to expect from Maxwell on a mission. I don’t like it when things don’t go according to plan and I can’t improvise around them!” Noting and appreciating his level of frustration Natsumi said nothing more. Heero felt internally thankful for the silence, as anger, and fear were not emotions that he frequently felt, and having them was not a comfortable or familiar. The idea of losing the Deathscythe was unacceptable. Deeper than that, the idea of Duo’s body broken, his neck at an odd or unnatural angle, him suffocated when the oxygen malfunctioned, or dying in fire, all of it swirled in his head in a horrific montage of possibility. Their bodies were so fragile. 

/He is your friend. Of course you would be affected if he died. Why is this so strange to you?/ 

Heero took a curve sharply, his knee flirting with the racing pavement. “I don’t have friends. I am not allowed that luxury. I have associates and I have teammates, that is what I have. You don’t know me.” 

Natsumi rested her cheek against his shoulder. 

 

Duo resurfaced to a cool feeling in his arm. Gazing up through his lashes, he found Heero’s face very close to his own. Then there was burning. Happily, it was brief. When he recovered enough to understand what had caused the burning, the beginnings of speech had slowly started to reintroduce themselves as well. “Heero. Why are you shining lights into my eyes? That hurt so bad. You have no idea.” 

The Wing pilot glared at him. “Something is very wrong with you. I do not know what it is. This is concerning for tactical reasons. You will see a medic. Today.” A few objections raised themselves and fell away again, unvoiced. It almost appeared as if Heero Yuy was emoting. There was a slight crease in his brow and one of his hands rested insistently on his forearm with a tight grip.

“Then find me a doctor you trust, I guess. There is no discussion on this matter?” 

“There will be absolutely no discussion on this matter.” 

“Fine, fine.” Usually it was up to him to be strong, bounce back and ignore it. The miasma of pain in his head was not something that was ignorable. Trying to move his limbs was a physical impossibility. 

Heero got closer, the horrific light passing over his other eye. Duo scrunched his eyes tight. “Enough of that already! I can’t deal with it!” The sound of Heero’s voice retreated a bit. 

“Your pupils aren’t reacting the way that are supposed to. I am going to pick you up. Can you hold on while we’re on a motorcycle?” 

Duo thought on it earnestly. The idea of the twists and the curves of the road was nauseating. “I don’t think so. I don’t even know if I can get out of the cockpit. My balance is fubar.” Cautiously, he opened his eyes again to find Heero with his fingers pressed over his eyes. It was a frustrated thinking pose. The day was turning out to be particularly interesting and fabulous, he saw sides of Heero he had never seen before. Heero snorted, tossing his head. “I will find us a car. Don’t fall out of your restraints.”

Flashing him a thumbs-up, Duo let his eyes close. 

/He will take care of you. You can calm down. Just relax. It will be okay. /

The back of his neck felt sticky and disgusting, the suit was too tight, and the restraints on his chest uncomfortable. “It’s very odd that you’re my little angel of mercy right at this moment. Did you see who hit me?” 

The demoness sat in the air in front of him, her legs tucked up under her in a kneeling position, her leathery wings gently stirring through the air without making a sound. /Nothing hit you, other than the strikes you had previously taken from the enemy. You went glassy-eyed and your hand jerked rather violently to the right, causing the suit to topple. You probably should listen to your compatriot’s recommendation and see a physician before this situation worsens. / There was a distinct lack of teasing and sass in her tone. Duo was used to his demon being slightly bawdy and condescending. Concern puzzled him. 

“Are you saying that I had a fit or something?” 

/Or something./ 

Heero stalked back, in his wake a distant sound of a car engine running. “I have secured transportation, let’s go.” 

Duo fumbled at his restraints, eventually freeing himself. Carefully looping his lead around his ankle and wrist, he allowed Heero to help him down and out of the Deathscythe. Crossing the floor did not register, where the next thing that did was being strapped into his seat. 

Heero stared edgewise at him, intent and puzzled. “Maybe you were drugged? Was the location compromised?” The questions seemed mostly rhetorical, and Duo did not try and answer them. As far as he was aware, their safe-house was secure and no one had slipped him anything. No one in the house would have done such a thing. 

 

Heero paced the room slowly, in even and measured steps. Order. It was always important to find order in his life. If he did not have that, then there was nothing but chaos. The room was pleasantly decorated, fashionable prints on the walls, and the colors designed to soothe and set one at ease. Maxwell rested on the examination table, an arm flung over his eyes to block the lights. The other arm rested outstretched, a little cotton-ball taped over the site where they had taken blood from. 

Upon hearing the symptoms, the attending physician had been somewhat concerned, and a large amount of blood-work had been ordered. That in itself made Heero very nervous. It was possible, being from the L2 colony, that Duo had antibodies from the outbreak there—a definitive marker that he was not a terrestrial human. Also a red flag for an identity check. Both of them had come in under cover, Heero’s story being that he was a half-sibling and their parents were away on business. 

“Heero.” 

Hearing his name, the Wing pilot turned. “Nn?” 

“I don’t think we have time for this. Some of the tests that they ordered won’t come back for a few days. We can’t stay here that long.” 

Folding his arms tightly over his chest, Heero nodded. He knew that they could not remain in this country over-long. If they could not defend them, Romefeller would overrun the territory, and no marks of their presence could remain if that possibility became reality. Still, his gut told him that he needed to find out what was going on; certainly he could not trust Duo to be an effective partner until he was better. Callously, his mind went through the other pilots, trying to pick out who would be better to fly with. Wufei or Trowa might work. While vastly different, the fighting style of both would be appropriate to compliment his own. 

“I will leave a dummy address and have the results forwarded. Your health is important.” 

When he glanced back, he found the Deathscythe pilot looking at him, inscrutable and silent. “I like to think so too,” he offered, after a lengthy pause. 

Simultaneously both of their cell phones went off, a vibration accompanying the sound to Duo’s. The long-haired pilot jerked his hips up, startled. “Fuck. Who’s calling?” Quickly, he pulled the device out of the taught material of his pants and glanced at it, frowning at what the screen showed him. 

Heero checked the screen on his phone and found himself mirroring Duo’s expression. This was not the time for more missions. The only people that had their numbers were the other pilots and their individual contacts. The information on the screen remained gravely serious. The decision made itself clear in his mind, though he did not like it. “I’ve got to go.” 

Duo was carefully peeling the sticky bracelet off of his wrists. “We both will. They gave me a shot, I can see straight. Don’t even argue with me about this shit right now. You can tell how serious it is from who’s calling.” 

Heero wanted to argue, but Duo was speaking logically. The others were too far away and the projected combatants were too much for him to handle alone. Slipping out and casually pressing a button, he activated a hack that he had put in place in the backdoor of the clinic’s network and erased their presence out of the clinic’s computers. Sliding into the car and heading toward the gundams, he glanced over at Duo seriously. 

“Don’t die Maxwell. I don’t fly well with others.” 

Duo had his game face on, shut down into a cool and slightly detached expression. Heero found that part of Duo very easy to empathize with even when the state of being seemed . Sliding his gaze sideways the other pilot nodded. “I have absolutely no intention of doing that.” 

Tucked into the back seat, with a wealth of distance between them, the two invisible watched the driver and Duo in the passenger seat. They waited with patience born of long suffering. They understood that there were more things to come. 


	6. Chapter 6

Quatre pressed a lydocaine patch over his ribs, delicately. The topical nature of the patch would allow the medicine to begin working fairly quickly, with the drugs absorbing through the skin rather than having to pass through his blood. Even Sandrock’s excellent internal systems had not been enough to save his skin from the bruises and soreness that came from hard fighting and extreme gravity. The pressure of the suit being thrown and the forces exerted sometimes took a toll on his body. The changeover from being a purely terrestrial suit to one that would allow space combat had not been a perfectly smooth one either. So many small things buzzed around in his head, like a swarm of bees, adding to the ache of stress and exhaustion. He would have to discuss different padding with the technicians next time he saw them. 

The dolls had been a nightmare. Just as he and Heero had discussed, each skirmish, no matter how small, was telling them something about how they as a unit worked. Any sort of information shared with the enemy was bad information. If they flew one way, they would have to change it later. He did not relish in the idea of having to pair up with Wufei, or Duo for that matter. All of them were able pilots, but their fighting styles tended to compliment specific others. Over the months he had grown very used to having Trowa as his backup. Still, his desires and the necessities for war were two very different things. 

Folding into his chair, he opened his tablet’s various windows, checking feeds, updating some stock options and checking in with his contacts. What he really wanted was to go and lie down and rest. Soon enough, his cell would go off and it would be time to head back out into the hail of ordnance. A file flashed in his inbox, color-coded to catch his attention. It was another translation from his sister. Shortly after the declaration of the Nova operation, he had sent her communication saying that he could check her translations for grammar and continuity, but he no longer had time to keep up with the pace that she had set. It saddened him a bit, to loose touch with an ancestor that he had slowly been growing familiar with through reading. He liked to see how the man had subtly shifted politics and the religious people of his region, carefully crushing quarrels, leveling disputes without any actual power. 

Deliberately he drew his cursor over to the file, clicking it and opening it, sinking into the world of the man from the text. The session that the scribe had caught apparently had very hectic handwriting. Footnotes that his sister included made allusion to the fact that it was difficult to read the letter-forms, as haste had smeared some of them. 

[ Today he comes off of the mountainside. The villagers will be frightened. When he comes they know that things have gone awry. 

He is unusual. Wouldn’t you be afraid, if you did not know that he was cognizant? He and his attendants both look like something out of the tales. The people will think that it is the end times, with characters from books manifest in the sky. 

I think he’s rather handsome too. I suppose if the end of the world was heralded by his like, then perhaps it would be all right. They are generally righteous. Possessive of course. But righteous nonetheless. I certainly much prefer dealing with the air lords than I do with the other denizens of the world of secrets. ] 

Quatre put his tablet down. Drugs, then, rather than simply being manipulative. Dragons, or at least that was the feeling that he got from the wording. His sisters and he often sat up late, reading myths from other countries. The label had once been applied to dragons, and the idea had stuck in his mind – of scaly regents presiding over thrones made of clouds and currents. Letting a quiet snort escape him, Quatre put the tablet aside. Life at the moment was entirely too serious for him to be reading the hallucinations of a hillside oracle. 

Hands brushed over his shoulders, smoothing his hair off his temples. Catching his breath, Quatre felt his skin prickle at a very sudden shift in temperature. Where the house had been pleasantly in the seventies, his neck and arms felt warm, heat pooling along his back. The kitchen fell away, and things went dark, as the hands traveled to rest over his eyes. 

“Guess who?” 

His mouth fell open just slightly, and Quatre swallowed, mind racing through possibilities. The voice against his ear sounded so familiar, and tightened parts of himself that he mostly ignored. Cloth draped itself around him, and Quatre wondered at the slightly rough and unfinished quality of what touched his skin. Perhaps it was something that was homespun. 

“I don’t know,” he ventured, his voice softened by wonder but not fear. Nothing about the stranger in his kitchen frightened him. That fact was cause for concern, but Quatre could not bring himself to summon any sort of worry. 

“You know who I am. I promised that I would always find you. And I did.” 

Loathe to break the strangely private moment that he had fallen into, Quatre left his palms flat against the table, rather than bringing his fingers up to investigate the knuckles of his guest and perhaps unravel some of the mystery of his presence. “I do not remember receiving any such promise. I would not hold you to it.” 

“I always keep my promises. And you remember me. You just don’t know it yet. The time will come. I’ll show you what you aren’t remembering. All of it is rather important.” 

Unable to further contain his curiosity, Quatre brought his hands up to the stranger’s, investigating the texture and shape of them. They were the hands of working man, slightly calloused, strong. Brushing his forefinger along the stranger’s ring-finger he found it preemptively truncated. Frowning, he softly explored the stump where the digit had once been. “What happened?” 

The stranger chuckled. “You will remember. We will talk tomorrow. After your battle. You left me a list of when you would and would not fight. Along with instructions. So. For now, I reluctantly leave to watch you once more. Call me if you need me.” 

Quatre felt lips brush the top of his head. The feeling of heat against his back dissipated, as well as the soft whisper of shifting sand. Forcing his jaw closed, he resisted the urge to call the man back. Intense nostalgia and affection burned through him like a fever, and regret followed on its heels, regret for someone that he missed terribly. 

Opening his eyes, he found Trowa watching him from across the table, bemused. “Welcome home. You went far away that time. I’ve been talking to you for about twenty minutes, and you weren’t saying a word. You are also blushing. Was whoever you were talking to cute?” 

Scoffing violently, Quatre rubbed his face, trying to get the blood in his cheeks to dispel, “No. I didn’t see them. Stop making fun of me. You know I hate it when I get strange.” 

Trowa shrugged, elegantly quiet as he always was. “You hate a lot about yourself, and I don’t understand any of it. C’mon.” Rising, he took Quatre’s hands and pulled him upstairs. Moving once more, Quatre’s ribs protested gently through the veil of the drugs, but he ignored it. Anticipation and heat pooled in his stomach and rushed to the rest of his body. Trowa and he were close, but not exactly lovers. Tiny, heated interludes here and there did not make up a relationship, and could not even be called an affair. However, sometimes, when they could find the time they would fold together in a tangle of limbs and mouths. 

Quatre supposed it was a mutual need fueled by desperation, fear and insanity. One could only put the proverbial gun to their head so often and do it again without being slightly off; piloting the gundams certainly could be considered Russian roulette of the highest caliber. Every mission was a possible bullet to the face. 

Perhaps Trowa too felt the same rampaging desire that burned through his body like a marching army, fueled by the fighting and the fear. They were in their teens, bodies primed to fall into the midst of their peers and discover what life and love were all about. The sort of fray that he had fallen into instead had nothing to do with what his body wanted. Still, he chose not to live his life in fear; there was too much beauty around him to do that. So when the aggression and the tension left, he let desire back in to fill him up. 

Guided to Trowa’s room, the taller pilot quietly settled him onto the bed, standing in front of him and glancing down. “Talk to me.” 

Quatre shrugged. “About what?” The query was soft, he never quite knew what to do with himself when Trowa looked at him the way that he presently did. Other than take off his clothes. 

“What do you need, how do you feel?” Trowa quietly reached forward, brushing his thumb along the line of Quatre’s lower-lip. The sensation made his pants feel two sizes too small, the rough texture of the other pilot’s fingers catching the somewhat swollen surface of his mouth. It was such a small gesture, but it felt so sensual. Lightly he flicked his tongue out and over the pad of Trowa’s thumb, playful. Still, the weight of the day hung over him like chains. Over the growing heat in his body, exhaustion clung to him. 

“Tired.” 

“Too tired?” 

“Never.” That was the sincerest truth that he could muster.

Trowa leaned forward, delivering a kiss so warm it felt like going home. Quatre pressed forward, hungry for the contact, and intimacy. 

***

Forcing himself up and out of bed, Quatre washed his hands, grabbed a warm towel for himself and Trowa, and quietly cleaned up. Quietly brushing the towel over the flat expanse of Trowa’s abdomen, he regarded him. “I’m not ready for another mission.” 

The confession was not meant as weakness, rather, he no longer desired to hold the truth inside of him. Every movement that he made was slightly dizzying; too much stress, too little sleep, and too much adrenaline made him feel numb. Even the pleasant warmth of the activity they had shared did little to abate the gnawing stress of the latest missions. 

Recaptured by long arms twined around his waist, Quatre fell forward into bed with Trowa, thudding into the soft expanse of the mattress. 

“Then don’t.” 

Brushing his lips fondly against the warm texture of Trowa’s shoulder, Quatre felt his mouth curve into a wry smile. “If only it were that simple. Like calling in sick to work.” 

“Some treat their work as such.” 

Allowing his eyes to close, Quatre made a gentle dissenting noise. “You know as well as I do that we don’t have sick days. Or days off. Every day that we take a day off, nations fall. War, is a very different thing from civilian life.” 

No argument came from that line of conversation. Glancing up, Quatre found Trowa asleep; his breaths soft and even, eyes closed. It was so tempting to stay right there, nestled up close and hidden half beneath a sheet. Generally they did not sleep together. There were a multitude of reasons. If they were in the same space there was a tactical disadvantage. Sleep was so rare that cell phones going off at odd hours for individual missions would wake the other. There was the gentle consideration for their other three roommates—Quatre did not know how the other pilots felt about homosexual relations, the subject had never come up. And there were awkward questions that would arise if they started sleeping together. Questions of whether or not they had taken the term ‘lover’, whether it meant that there was something deeper between them than a mutual need and attraction. 

Quatre possessed the answers to none of the hard questions. While he certainly liked Trowa, and enjoyed having him as an ally, he did not trust the young man. Detached, cool, and flippant, he was just as likely to disappear as he was to stay. Regarding himself, he had similar doubts. His time and body belonged to his family. A sneak peek into the family logs had revealed startling and uncomfortable truths about what they intended for him and how they wanted to keep him alive. Clones, sisters, body parts. The whole of it made him feel nauseated and detached. The idea of being close and beholden to anyone did not appeal to him as much as the idea of the title of champion and savior. He could be loyal to unnamed and faceless oppressed people. He could live the ideal of being a generous rich person who shared what they had and worked for the common good. 

What he could not be was a boy who was another boy’s full-time lover. Not when they were both terrorists. Not in the middle of the war. Not without peace of mind. The idea of love was too frightening. 

Quatre closed his eyes, resting his face along Trowa’s shoulder, and draping an arm around his ribcage, nestling close to the other pilot and letting himself fall into the stillness of sleep. 

* * * 

Heero stared at his screen numbly. Somehow. Somehow they had done it. Enemies had either surrendered, left, or died. He and Duo stood encased in their armor, victorious reapers in a field of death. The surrounding landscape was torn up, deep gouges open like wounds in fields that had previously held crops. The roads that had previously led into area were melted from lasers and other high-energy weaponry. 

They had won. The taste of the victory was somewhat sweetened by the fact that only a few enemy pilots had been killed. Instead, they had destroyed doll after doll, clearing the area of engagement of all obstacles. Pools of coolant and oil saturated the fields and some of the remaining concrete, bits of wire and metal lay strewn about like bones. 

Duo came over the encrypted channel. “We’re done. Let’s pack it in. I can’t see straight any longer.”

Heero punched in a rendezvous coordinate for his wingman and took off, cutting communication to maintain what was left of their cover. Natsumi stroked his cheek, brushing hair off of his forehead that he had not taken note of previously. Sweat had adhered it to his skin slightly above his eyebrows and the sensation was uncomfortable. “Did you need something?” 

“You do,” she returned, quietly observing the flow of information over the Wing’s various screens. 

“And what is it that I need.” 

“Information.” 

“It is a rare and valuable commodity. Either tell me what you intend to or do not. I do not have time for games.” The truth of the matter was that flying, talking and paying attention for enemies was occupying the entirety of his focus. 

“I know who it was that leaked the information about the Wing. I have taken care of it.” 

Heero jerked his head to the side, puzzled. “What do you mean? Taken care of it? Were there others?” 

Natsumi pressed a kiss to the top of Heero’s head and the pilot shivered. Uninvited touch did not sit well with him, it made him feel fidgety and tense. “Don’t do that.” 

“My apologies.” Natsumi murmured her reply retreating slightly from where she had leaned against his chair, half in and half out of the wall directly behind him. Heero idly wondered whether his companion effected the electrical flow of the suit. If she did, then it was proof that she actually had some effect in the physical world and that she was not an exhaustion-based hallucination. “You never answered my question.” He pressed, because the thought of having a helper with supernatural means was enticing in ways that he had never previously considered. 

“I took care of it. For plausible deniability that is all you need to know.” 

It was tempting to take her at face value. However, blind trust was something for civilians and children. Neither could be said to describe him any longer. “ I want proof. Otherwise how do I know that you didn’t do it in the first place, in the middle of some elaborate game?”

Grinning, Natsumi came around to his side, leaning in with exuberance. “I see peeks of the old you here and there. And I love it. That is a good question. And because you have posed it, I will give you a good answer once you have sleep. You have my word, worth what it is to you, that your safe-house remains safe.” 

Sleep was too tempting. Heero cursed himself for his frailty, but his mind would not allow any further divergence from the task of rest. Docking the Wing into his confirmed secure location he began shutdown procedures, relishing in the twilight in his cockpit after all of the computers were in standby. “They won’t miss me, right?” 

Natsumi settled against his legs, a soft and vague warmth. Curled into the bottom of the cockpit, the material she draped herself in whispered as she adjusted. “They will understand if you grab a nap. Would you like me to set an alarm?” 

Heero snorted vaguely. “Give me ten minutes. Then I need to move.” 

Lightly, she patted his ankle, saying nothing. Not thinking to set an alarm for himself, Heero laid his head back against the headrest and let his eyes slide closed. 

* * * 

Duo quietly held the opened envelope in his hands. Someone had put a rush on his tests and they arrived earlier in the day while he was out. Taciturn Wufei had handed him the parcel before heading out on one of his own skirmishes. The Shenlong pilot’s serious admonishment to ‘read it, it’s important’ rang in his ears after the fact. The verbiage of the letter was very straightforward, no drugs, no anemia. Something odd showed up in one of the panels and a retest requested. And a suggestion not to drive as he might be epileptic. 

“Seizures. Huh.” Folding himself into a chair Duo ran his fingers along the edges of the paper, considering the contents. 

If he were an epileptic, that would certainly put a damper on his piloting career. Still, he reasoned with himself, it was simply an advisory. They were not telling him that it was actually epilepsy. All of his understanding of the disease also argued against that prognosis. Oftentimes a patient had some indication that the condition was present early on, and to his knowledge he had been a freakishly healthy child. Crumpling the letter and putting it through the shredder he shook his head. “I’m just under a lot of stress and I probably hit my head when I was fixing my suit. And that is what’s wrong with me. Maybe a little concussed. They didn’t get a chance to do the head scans that they had discussed with me. Maybe I’ll go see another doctor when I have time.” 

Emerging from the floorboards as if breaking the surface of the water, his demoness gazed up at him. / It’s not like you to be careless. Your body is all that you have in this life, other than your emotional ties and your faith, whatever it is./ 

Resisting the urge to shove her back down and under the floorboards, Duo leaned down and looked at her. “My body is important. But I know it. And I don’t think that there is anything wrong with me.” 

Leaning on her forearms meditatively, the child smiled, the appendages at her back gently fluttering. Morbidly fascinated Duo watched the tensing and pulling of the tendons anchored in unnatural places underneath her skin. The network of veins and tissue was enthralling. Duo sometimes had wondered at how it would be like to have wings. 

/Are you thinking about biting me? / 

Repulsed, Duo leaned back. “No. I have no idea where you’ve been. Go away. I’m exhausted.”

/If you really were, you would be dead asleep. You even sleep on missions do you not?/ 

Rising irritation about the whole day gripped him. The letter had jangled his nerves, Heero was not back on-schedule nor had he called; being around the child made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Above all of those other factors, a headache sat stealthily in the back of his mind, waiting. “That was a one-time thing. I think that we haven’t been sleeping enough.” 

Shaking her head, the child grinned. /I know that you haven’t. But lack of sleep has never been a problem for you before, has it?/ 

Standing up and pacing away from the unnatural sight of someone half in and half out of his floor, Duo shook his head, running his fingers through his knotted hair. The mass needed a brushing like he needed to breathe, but the idea of putting pressure on his scalp was off-putting. “No, it hasn’t. Child, I don’t know what you are called, what you want, or what it is that you are trying to accomplish, but I’m over it. Get out of my house and my life.” 

Smiling in a secretive way, the child emerged fully from the floor, sprawling comfortably at his feet. /Alex./ 

Duo blinked at her. “Pardon?”

/My name is Alexandria. I was named after the burnt libraries. Someone had a sense of humor./ 

Stretching his mind to try and understand how the child in front of him and burnt books had anything to do with each other, Duo gave up. When it came to his companion very little was sensible or fathomable. “That’s lovely. Thank you for sharing.” 

/You wanted to know what to call me. Call me Alex. Child is fine too, but not technically accurate. You are many, many years my junior./ 

Her proximity was irritating, and her demeanor infuriating; Duo was slowly beginning to gather an inkling of what Heero felt like when he grumbled at him for being irritating. 

“Fair. Why are you here?” 

/I am here to watch over you./ 

“You have a very strange way of showing it.” 

/If I were here for nefarious purposes I could have simply let you die on the battlefield./ 

Stung, Duo recoiled back against his chair a bit, cantankerousness rising to replace the anxiety and exhaustion. “You could just be playing at both sides. Trying to get me to trust you. And then-” 

/And then. You don’t have anything to put after it./ Having interrupted him, Alex stood up, resting her tiny hands atop his knees, gazing up at him. /Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is the explanation that is the correct one. While others are more complex, the likelihood decreases./ 

Duo snorted irritated at her. “I know what Occam’s razor is.” Glancing at the clock, he frowned quietly, leaving the subject of ancient philosophy. “I don’t like that he’s late.” 

Alex arched a playful eyebrow, and grinned. /Your lover?/ 

Indignant color rushed into his face. “What the hell are you talking about?! Whose lover?” 

Alex flipped her wings, sassy. /I just assumed. My apologies./ 

Duo wished he could reach out and shake her. But child-abuse was frowned upon in most places. “You shouldn’t assume things like that at all! He’s just my copilot.” Feeling strangely exposed, Duo got out of the chair, leaving the offending letter, Alex and his worries behind him. Heero Yuy would return home when he felt inclined. 

Lingering behind Duo, Alex sat on the floor languid in a pool of twilight spilling in, her skin haloed in red and gold. /You should pay attention to doctors, Duo. They sometimes know what they’re talking about./ Taking the remnants of the letter out of the shredder and willing them back into one, she left it under a book. Retreating for the moment she hoped the appropriate parties would take note. A life depended on it. 


	7. Hurricane

Heero sat bolt upright, jerking against what restrained him. Cold bands crossed his chest and forced him down. Panting, he stared around the darkened arena that he had awoken to. “What?!” 

A head adjusted itself against his knees. Reaching out blindly and stroking a hand through a mass of hair, Heero’s mind reeled, trying to process the truth of his present circumstance. “Duo?” Audio clues provided him with some context. Everything was muted, there were no sounds like those that would show up in a facility or similar place.

The voice that answered back through the green-tinted limbo was not male. “Sadly, not. Though I would be what ever else I could be for you.” 

Frantically trying to process what was happening to him and where he was, Heero stared through the murky ambiance to observe the strands of fine black hair curled around his fingers. “Natsumi.” The setting made more sense. He was in the Wing’s cockpit. They had been talking and then he went down for a nap. Thrusting a hand out to one of the screens, he pulled up a clock and growled. 

“Tch’.” If the glowing numbers on the screen were correct, he was four-hours past due. Jamming a hand out to tap at one of the screens, he quickly sent a volley of messages out to the appropriate parties, informing them that he had not been captured or killed. His contacts responded quickly, messages lighting up the screen in a tidy list. 

Still resting her head against his knees, Natsumi hummed, softly breaking the symphony of taps and clicks and pings with her more organic melody. Lightly tapping the top of her head, he closed out his windows. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” 

Chuckling, she shook her head. “You told me not to set an alarm. I did not think that it was pertinent. You need to sleep, sometimes. It is important.” 

Heero started at unexpected movement along his legs. Glancing down, he noticed feathery things pressing along the side of his thighs. Wondering, he murmured at her. “I forget you are winged. Aren’t you uncomfortable?” 

Natsumi made a neutral noise. “I tolerate most things well. There is a wider range of motion to them than you would think. You will remember in time.” 

Disregarding the general strangeness of his companion he finished security procedures on the suit and extricated himself, getting on a waiting motorcycle to head home. The sky had deviated sharply from what the weather report had suggested. Rain-packed nimbus butted and swirled up against one another creating an angrily dark mass that served only to further darken the evening by blotting out stars completely. The air felt sultry and heavy, pressing down tightly against his skin. Wind howled and swirled, pushing the trees into a frantic dance. Shaking his head and securing his helmet he got onto the bike and headed out into the dark, intent on the safe house. 

* * * 

Duo and his feet were having a disagreement. They proposed that he walk back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth for the next three hours rather than using the rare lull in military activity to sleep. Duo proposed that he sleep. So far, both sides were at an impasse. 

Footsteps wound their way down the hall toward him. Two of his fellows were already home. Duo had observed Trowa’s car outside and Quatre was also present. Wufei was not due back until the next day. By process of elimination it was Heero. His heart sped up uncomfortably. Pausing by his slightly open door and peering out the crack he waited. When the moment was right he struck with precision, bringing Heero into the room and holding his fore-arms. “Hey stranger.” He opened with a greeting so as not to get launched into the opposite wall of the room. 

Looking blurry, tired and slightly cantankerous, the brunette regarded him. “Maxwell,” he allowed, the muscles under Duo’s hands flexing. 

Duo pressed down a variety of emotion and response. His first impulse to shake the man was the first one to be disregarded. “So. You’re a bit off-schedule. We thought that you’d been captured, but there was nothing over the networks about something that big going down.” 

Heero shook his head. “If I had been captured they would have been more subtle about it. You would assume that the general person would be stupid enough to make an announcement, but the higher ups know better than that. The suits are still considered confidential technology. At least until their betters are unveiled.” Grinning with teeth, the Wing pilot attempted to free his arms from Duo’s hands. “Any particular reason for the ambush? There isn’t much time left until we have to go again.” 

Shaking his head, Duo blinked sharply as he saw Alex out of the corner of his eye, tucked under the bed and watching them like a house-cat tucked under the bedclothes. Forcibly ignoring her, he returned his attention to Heero. “I have doubts that tomorrow is a go. Weather’s so fubar that I don’t think that anyone’s flying.” 

Having nothing to say on that matter, the Wing pilot nodded again. Out of the initial rush of joy at seeing his copilot, Duo took in the smaller details of Heero, the subtle darkness around his eyes, the slight lines at the corner of his mouth from grimacing, and the chill dampness that permeated his clothes. “You look like crap. You probably should go shower.” 

Arching an eyebrow at him, Heero concurred. “That was where I was headed. Want to let me go?” 

“No.” 

Both of them paused at Duo’s direct reply. Duo felt awkward heat coloring his cheeks. Still, he had never been the sort of person to back down from a challenge. The young man standing in front of him had been a challenge of the sort that he previously had shied away from, internally promising a later resolution. Connecting with others was sometimes very hard. It felt difficult to be a part of a team, part of a family, part of anything cohesive when he had never been part of any of those things. As with most of the pilots there, he preferred to be by himself, and to work independently. There was less margin for error, but there were also no others to concern himself with. Still, when it came to Heero he felt as if he might be able to be a part of something. And in that togetherness, he might be a part of something that was then stronger than anything he could accomplish by himself. 

Heero peered at him curiously, making no move to step around him. “Why?” 

The question hung in the air between them. Duo forced himself to meet Heero’s eyes. “Why not?” 

Having evaded the answer for a heartbeat, Duo tried to grin away the tension, to dispel the mood with sheer force of will. 

“Because holding onto me is nonsensical.”

Play, or be serious about which tone to take. There was no question in his mind. “Everything that I do is nonsensical.” 

“Liar.” The word stuck him like a fist, directly to his sternum. Duo heard the shock in his voice even as his eyes widened. “What did you say?” 

“I said that you are a liar. Most things that you do serve a purpose. I know it. You know it. You wouldn’t have been chosen as one of us if it didn’t. You would already be dead.” 

So many things that he could reply to that statement, most of them further diversions, things that his persona would gleefully quip. So many. Instead, he chose to take the compliment that Heero had inadvertently paid him. “Thank you.” The military wonder thought that he was worth his snuff, the curious euphoria this caused him was something Duo left unexamined. 

The brunette tilted his head at him, obviously puzzled. “Still not going to let me go.” 

Duo shook his head again, his insistence not even really making sense to himself. “Nope.” Under his fingertips the gentle and relaxed tempo of Heero's pulse felt warm. It was a soothing rhythm to his jangled nerves. 

“Nothing for it.” Heero twisted his hand so that their palms brushed and took Duo’s hand, heading toward the bathroom with purpose. The tables suddenly turned on him, Duo stared rather helplessly at the gathered folds of cloth between Heero’s shoulder-blades, noticing the map of pressure-marks and half-healed bruises decorating narrow shoulders. He was still growing into them, and like the rest of them would probably get a little taller. 

“Where are we going Heero?” 

Into the bathroom, past the unobtrusive hamper, the two of them reflected in the mirror. Heero stared at him, backing him up against the counter. The cold tile bit into the small of his back. “Let me go now?” 

“No.” 

A smile appeared on his face, slowly curling up lips that were an endlessly fascinating subject of study. It was a very elusive smile, Duo had only seen it twice before, as it was often smothered under intense grimaces or a neutral expression. “Then it will be very hard for me to take off my clothes. Will we be showering together?” 

Was Heero Yuy flirting with him? Duo’s mind reeled. “No. That would be stupid. I’ll take your gun to the safe.” Finally releasing the Wing pilot, Duo accepted the firearms that Heero offered over and quietly headed toward the gun-safe that they had brought into the house, feeling a blush rampaging across his cheeks and ears alike. Carefully divesting the pistols of their loaded bullets and slipping the magazines out, he put the pile into the safe and closed it. Behind him, the chorus of water hitting the tile began, filling up the heated silence he found himself floating in. “You are a fool Maxwell. A FOOL.” Cursing himself under his breath he went about organizing the remaining ammunition that was not stored in the safe. Outside, the wind howled and grumbled, whipping the trees into a frenzy. Chancing a look out of the window, Duo fervently hoped that Wufei would be home soon, and that they could ride out the larger storm they as a unit had become embroiled in. 

* * * 

Wufei did not like the flippant way that the wind was treating him: one moment leaving him alone and the next jerking him around like child with a toy. The tires on his motorcycle were not dealing well with the suddenly slick surface of the highway, and his clothes were drenched. Vaguely he wished that he had insisted on a car as his mode of transport back to the safe-house, but the motorcycles were easier to hide in the garage. A variety of strange cars all parked at a house at odd intervals would call unwanted attention to them. Focusing his attention on the road he returned to the more immediate situation, namely not getting hit by other drivers or pitched over the off-ramp and down onto the asphalt below. The pressure from the larger incoming storm made him feel ill-at-ease. This sort of weather was the type to be dancing or fighting in, and that sent horses streaking across fields with their tails high. The time to be flowing through katas in a practice space and transferring the energy of the chaos above his head away. The colonies never had weather this severe, or any weather to speak of. Sparing a glance upward, he chuckled as lighting forked across the sky. A few concerned motorists shot him glances through rain-flecked windows as they fled the storm with him, their headlights ineffectual help against the pressing darkness. 

An episode of fishtailing later and he admitted defeat to himself. He would not serve his colony, his pride, or his team if he was dead on the road. Pulling into a motel off of the side of the road and easing his bike under an awning, he nodded in silence at some of his fellow travelers, also seeking respite from the biting weather. Tucking his helmet under an arm he made his way through the throng, patiently waiting his turn at the front desk. The clerk there, an affable older gentleman, doubtless pleased at the sudden increase in business nodded to him. “It’s sixty per night. I’m actually out of rooms at this point. Though there is a couple that says they would be willing to share I’ll cut the price in half. Or else you can wait and see if someone checks out.” 

Considering his options, neither scenario was promising. The wind outside raged, clattering the motel’s sign, and the rain had gone from unpleasant to stinging needles before his arms had gone completely numb. However, staying with strangers put his cover in serious jeopardy. “Who?” There was no harm in asking. 

A couple stepped forward, also ex-colony members from the look of them. A compact young lady with black hair drawn back in a tight braid hanging down to her waist smiled at him, giving him a nod. Beside her, a taller boy, a few years older than he with eyes an unsettling shade of pale brown smiled as well. Stepping toward them and assessing them quickly Wufei felt a sort of camaraderie. They looked as if they were from his home colony and an odd sentimentality curled itself through his chest at the thought. “I’ll do it. Thank you.” Paying the clerk he nodded to his companions for the evening. The probability of sleep had diminished in his mind to nil, but at very least he could dry off and rest his eyes. 

Following the pair to their room, he stepped into a very average hotel space: bed, heater bravely rattling away, windows with shades drawn over them, shaking occasionally with the force of the wind outside. Turning to the pair, he nodded to them. “I appreciate this. Thank you.”

The girl, obviously the more social of the pair, returned his nod, quietly reaching out and taking his helmet from him, placing it on a table where the lining could dry. “It’s not a problem. The weather out there is absurd. My name is Tsai Anming. This is He Jie. We’re happy we could help you.” 

Wufei felt himself ease up just a touch. “Again, you have my thanks. It is too much to drive out in this. My name is Chang Wufei.” So stupid. It was so stupid to give his given name to complete strangers. However, in this storm there was no one that they could contact; his cell has lost reception about an hour prior and already power and it was unlikely that anyone around him was in a better position. The satellites that served their communication devices were formidable, his contacts had linked him up to service better than that which consumer mass-communication. 

Anming nodded, pulling the comforter from off of the bed. “You’re soaked. Go ahead and use the shower first, and we’ll use the hair dryer on your clothes while you’re at it.” Throwing the comforter at him so that it landed on his head, he heard her walk behind him and into the bathroom, and the soft clicks of the hair dryer being removed from its niche. The action of covering him and obscuring his view normally raised all sorts of alarms, but these people did not disturb him in the slightest. Perhaps that was a symptom of exhaustion- that his edge was dulling– or maybe it was the sense of people that he had trusted all of his life, which in itself should have aroused some sort of suspicion. However, his sense of people was keen like a knife, and very rarely incorrect. Though his fingers and arms ached from the cold, he did not curl into the comforter; he would compromise too much of his reach and range of motion. Piling it into a little heap on the floor next to the bed he waited for Anming and her friend to get out of his way before heading for the bathroom. At very least, he could shower. Jie watched him from where he had settled onto the bed, back to the storm outside. “You really had somewhere to be if you were willing to drive in that.” Twitching his head at the window, the young man favored Wufei with a warm smile. “You must have people waiting?” 

Lightly drumming his fingers over the rounded edge of the helmet, Wufei returned the smile, feeling disingenuous. “Something like that.” The bathroom finally unoccupied, he made for the industrial white vacated space locking the door behind him. Through the thin wood of the door Anming’s voice rang out in clear directions. “Remember to leave your clothes out flat so they’ll dry. I wasn’t kidding about blow-drying them if you’ll let me!” 

Smoothing a hand over one of the pistols that had been kept tucked under his shirt and close to his hip he shook his head. The others had insisted that he carry firearms. The whole practice was distasteful and dishonorable, but there had been a few instances where hand-to-hand was not immediately feasible. “No, that’s fine. Thank you though. We have no idea how long the power is going to be on, I don’t want to strain the hotel’s resources anymore than they already will be with everyone here.” It would not do for his roommates to see that he was packing. Indulging in a quick shower he allowed what hot water there was to sluice down his back and carry with it some of the tension of the day. Nataku was safe, and no other obligations were so pressing that they could not wait for the storm to pass. 

 

* * * 

Quatre turned over in bed and closer to the warmth that sufficed his body. There were still knife-sharp pains here and there, but overlaying those bursts was a sort of calm that he had not felt in weeks. Trowa rolled over, looking down the longer line of his body at Quatre, reaching out to slowly brush his fingers through his hair. “Hey you.” 

The languor overlaying him was so thick that he was loathe to break the silence. By speaking he would break the spell and then it would be back to war. Fierce banging and rattling against the window reminded him of the severe weather report. The possibility of war decreased slightly with the strength of the storm outside. The dolls could fight in this weather perhaps, but the suits were not fine-tuned for storms and absurdity, and the targeting AI on the dolls would struggle with all of the interference. War could wait then. 

“Quatre?” 

Resting his chin on Trowa’s ribs, he smiled at him. “Yes?” 

“You need to sleep more. You space out a lot.” 

“Lot on my mind.” 

The snort Trowa gave him communicated much more than a reply might otherwise have. 

“Don’t give me a hard time. You know I have things on my mind.” 

“We all do.” 

Sitting up slowly, the sheets spilling down along his back to pool around his hips, the blonde stretched, pushing his fingers up toward the ceiling and up toward the stars that were sometimes home. “My things are more pressing.” Peevish he got out of bed, looking around for his clothes. In the midst of everything he had not paid a great deal of attention to where individual articles landed. 

Watching him with the patient air, Trowa lounged on the mattress, enjoying the stillness. “You sure that you want out of bed? We could just rest.” 

Shaking his head, Quatre stepped into his slacks commando, forgoing the boxers from earlier. They still needed laundering. All of him needed a serious wash, but that was a truth that he was holding at bay until the process of dressing had been accomplished. “There are things that need doing. I’ve got stocks that need an eye on them, I’ve got translations to check and strategy to lay out. So no. But thank you.” 

Trowa rose, quietly peeling the sheets off of the bed and heading for the garage with a small smile. Taking that as a cue to excuse himself, Quatre made a beeline to his room, dropping his clothes into the hamper and heading out for the upstairs shower. Judging by the hour, if there was no mission, Heero would be working on something and Duo would be asleep. Passing no one in the halls, clad only in a stray pair of pants that had been hanging out of his borrowed chest of drawers, Quatre fled into the sanctuary of the bathroom. The hot water was temperamental and cut out halfway through, but that was simply an impetus to quickly conclude his business and get to the other matters of the day. Getting to sleep, and more importantly doing so with someone that made him feel safe tremendously improved his outlook on the day. 

Hands slipped around his waist from behind. Wondering if Trowa was serious about pulling him back to his room for a second round, he gently pushed at the arms restraining him. “Not now!” Hissing out of the corner of his mouth, he could not help but smile. For all of the seriousness these little moments made things bearable. His hand faltered when he found the truncated finger from the day previous in the kitchen. “Hello again.” His voice was unusually soft. Looking around, making sure that he was not in a fugue and losing time, he found the wind outside still howling, the arms around his waist seemed so solid and warm. 

Lips brushed against his ear. “Hello Master. It was time, so I come to you. There is so much that you need to see. Most of it got left out of the books. Things are beginning again. You told me to tell you to read the ninth book. I’ll be back this evening once you have. We will go from there.” 


End file.
